DUBAI: Rajasthan Royals are one of the few teams in the league, which does not have a superstar in the second leg of the IPL 2021.
In the first half of the league, the team possessed Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, big names, who immediately instill fear.
With the English trio not available for the remainder of the competition, there was a serious need for others to deliver if they are to do well in the UAE leg.
To be fair, all-rounder Stokes and Buttler might not have been missed much against Punjab Kings on Tuesday with the batting unit delivering the goods as Royals scored an impressive 185 batting first.
However, it wouldn’t be wrong to say Archer and Stokes the bowler were missed in the early stages of the match.
But when it came to the crunch situation, youngster Kartik Tyagi delivered the goods in the final over when Punjab needed four runs with eight wickets in hand.
He conceded just one run, helping his team win by two runs.
It was a game, where Royals snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
Mustafizur Rahman also deserves a special mention as Punjab needed eight runs from the last two overs with Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran in the middle.
This will be a difficult pill to swallow for Punjab, who were in the driver’s seat for majority of the second innings.
It was not the first time that they failed to close out a match from a winning situation as they have suffered similar fate in recent seasons.
After Punjab openers Mayank Agarwal (67) and KL Rahul added 120 runs for the first wicket, they looked set for a win. Such was their dominance that the opposition looked helpless as the duo were dealing in boundaries.
The same continued when Markram and Pooran were also in the middle, but it has to be said that they failed in their job to see their team home when it mattered most.
Though Kartik and Mustafizur deserve a special mention with their brilliant death bowling, the all-round show from the Royals batsmen counted a lot in the overall result.
Brief scores: Rajasthan 185 in 20 ovs (Jaiswal 49; Arshdeep 5/32) bt Punjab 183/4 in 20 ovs (Agarwal 67; Tyagi 2/29).