With a total of 155 to defend, Riyan Parag and Rajasthan Royals (RR) didn’t have a lot of margin for error. The chase went down to the last over. Rinku Singh finished it with a six and brought up Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) first win of the season.
At the post-match presentation, Parag was asked about his bowling changes, in particular about suddenly turning to Brijesh Sharma and asking the uncapped seamer to bowl for the first time in the 18th over and going to him again for the 20th when Nandre Burger was also an option.
“He was almost there to bowl, I feel, the 14th and the 16th as well,” Parag said of Brijesh. “But then they [KKR] lost wickets and then there were left-handers so I brought myself in [to bowl offspin] and the spinners were going really well so I showed trust in the spinners that we might get a slog or something to get a wicket. We almost did that.”
Parag was referring to the chance that Rinku offered when he was on 8, off Ravindra Jadeja’s bowling, which Burger shelled. KKR were 73 for 5 at that stage with Ravi Bishnoi and T20 debutant Yash Raj Punja denying clear-cut scoring opportunities.
“Spin was extracting a lot. There was a lot of spin on the wicket. The way Jaddu, Bishi, Punja all bowled, I felt the need of the hour was spin. And that’s why I went with it. When it works out, it looks nice. I felt it worked out today as well but just a few errors here and there that cost us two points.”
Parag eventually turned away from spin because the specialists he had left – Jadeja and Punja – would turn it into the batters out in the middle – Rinku and Anukul Roy.
“And once Bishnoi’s over was done, I felt spinners might go here because of the left-handed combination so I felt Brijesh was going to go 18 and 20.”
RR took the game into the final over but were unable to close it out. They have four wins in six games and travel to Lucknow to face the Super Giants on April 22.
