IPL 2018: Can Rajasthan Royals return to winning ways?
As Ajinkya Rahane leads the Rajasthan Royals out on the Sawai Mansingh turf in Jaipur tonight (8th May), the road ahead for him and the team would be clearer than ever - five wins in as many matches. That is all the Royals need to qualify for the playoffs. A step here or there, however, would mean another abrupt end of their campaign.
Back into the IPL after two years, the Royals went into the auctions with a near-clean slate. In Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, D'arcy Short and Jofra Archer, they bought a more than able overseas contingent and in Ajinkya Rahane, Sanju Samson, Jaydev Unadkat and Rahul Tripathi, a strong Indian line-up.
That they had to do without the services of retained skipper Steve Smith was certainly a big blow, but they still had most of their bases covered. Come 9th May, however, things started to spiral down.
A nine-wicket loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad in their opener was followed by two back-to-back wins, but that was it. Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Punjab - Rajasthan fell to all of them, one by one. They did defeat Mumbai in their sixth outing, however, they've lost three on the trot since.
What has gone wrong for Rajasthan?
As Smith was banned from participating in the tournament, Short's path to the playing XI was cleared. The opener, however, was caught short of the crease twice in the first two matches and his failure to find form post that resulted in RR chopping and changing their combination more often than they would've liked.
This adversely affected Rahul Tripathi as well. The Maharashtra batsman was at his brilliant best last year for the Rising Pune Supergiant at the top, however, this term, he has managed just 99 runs at 14.14 from lower middle order.
Their most expensive buy, Ben Stokes, has been disappointing as well - 160 runs and two wickets in nine matches - not worth the 12 crores that Rajasthan paid him. The team management missed another trick by persisting with Ben Laughlin for too long and making Archer, who has eight wickets in half the matches, wait on the flanks.
Skipper Rahane hasn't been impressive enough as well and has failed to up the ante once the field spreads post the powerplay overs. Though Buttler's promotion up the order seemed to have solved their problem at the top, Rajasthan desperately need their middle order of Samson, Buttler, Tripathi and Gowtham to come good.
Five more matches and a win in each would see RR through to the playoffs but one defeat and Rajasthan's wait for their second IPL trophy will be extended for another year.