Rajasthan Royals have put one foot in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 playoffs as they thrashed Lucknow Super Giants by 24 runs in their latest fixture. On a track where RR posted 178/6 while batting first, LSG batters failed to get going and eventually fell short by a fair margin. During the course of the encounter, Yuzvendra Chahal regained the Purple Cap by going past RCB leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga.
While Chahal took his tournament tally to 24 wickets, Hasaranga is now holding second place with 23 scalps. Meanwhile, the RR spinner played down any competition for the pinnacle spot in the bowling charts between him and the Sri Lanka spinner. Calling Hasaranga and Kuldeep Yadav his brother, Chahal said he’s happy with the success of his contemporaries. “Whatever he’s (Hasaranga) doing, I am happy for him because he’s like a brother to me. If he takes wickets, if Kuldeep takes wickets, I am happy with that,” Chahal said after the match. Meanwhile, Chahal took the important wicket of Deepak Hooda in the game which tightened RR’s grip over the contest. However, he wasn’t really pleased with his overall performance, having conceded 42 runs in his quota of four overs.
“We needed that win. For us to finish in the top two, we had to win this match. I was a little bit disappointed with myself but I’ll definitely come back in the next game. When Hooda was batting so well, the leg-side was shorter, I didn’t want to take any risk. I tried to bowl a couple of flighted balls, he tried to hit sixes, so I didn’t want to give any extra runs,” he added. Meanwhile, the race for playoffs has intensified as we are at the business end of the competition. While Gujarat Titans have officially secured a top-two finish, RR and LSG are all but through with 16 points and net run being on the positive side. However, mathematically, both sides can still get knocked out. Hence, it would be interesting to see what the final four will look like.
