CHENNAI: Rajasthan Royals should be asking themselves how they find themselves in the bottom three in the IPL table with the kind of players at their disposal.
Things had become so desperate after four straight defeats that they decided to fast-track Ben Stokes into the side against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Flying in from the winter of New Zealand to the sweltering heat of the UAE, and after a six-day quarantine, Royals threw him straight into the action in the hope that he could turn things around.
Stokes has moved mountains in the past but his contribution here was negligible, having bowled one over and made five runs while opening the batting.
On Sunday, with the Stokes experiment failing and the other big names like Jos Buttler, Steve Smith and Sanju Samson misfiring again, it looked like Royals were staring at their fifth straight defeat. However, they found two unlikely heroes in the form of Rahul Tewatia (45 not out) and young Riyan Parag (42 not out) who rescued them from the jaws of defeat. Both strung together a match-winning partnership from what looked like a lost cause as their 85-run stand steered them to a five-wicket win.
Another defeat would have meant Royals would have had to start depending on other results for qualification hopes but the two points on Sunday means that they are just two points off the last playoff spot as we near the half-way stage of the competition.
Interestingly, 18-year-old Parag was one of the four changes Royals had made for the game, and fittingly, he smashed the winning runs by lofting Khaleel Ahmed for a six of the penultimate ball of the innings.
While Stokes might still take time to come up to speed, and the top order starts being consistent, Royals might have found a good spine in the form of Parag and Tewatia.
After batting first, Sunrisers posted a competitive total 158/4 with Manish Pandey (54) and David Warner (48) setting the tone. In the process, Warner managed to reach 3500 runs for Sunrisers while Pandey got to a personal landmark of three-thousand runs in IPL.
Sunrisers looked well on course for a second straight victory when they comfortably ran through the top order of Royals. Stokes opened the innings but lasted just six balls while Buttler and Smith were also back in the hut soon all inside five overs. Royals needed a big innings from Samson who had made just 17 runs from his last four matches but he fell for 26.
By the time Tewatia and Parag were at the crease, Sunrisers had their foot down the throat of Royals with all the big names back in the dugout.
However, Tewatia and Parag had other ideas as they decided not to give up. Tewatia even smacked the dangerous Rashid Khan for a hat-trick of boundaries in the 18th over.
After Parag scored the winning runs, he broke out into a little dance but there was little reaction from Smith who knows that there is work to be done if they are to have any chance of qualification.
Brief Scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 158 for four in 20 overs (Manish Pandey 54, David Warner 48; Jofra Archer 1/25).
Rajasthan Royals: 163 for five in 19.5 overs (Rahul Tewatia 45 not out, Riyan Parag 42 not out; Rashid Khan 2/25).