Sunil Gavaskar criticized the Rajasthan Royals for playing poor and unplanned cricket, especially given Rahul Dravid is their coach.
Rajasthan Royals suffered their fifth straight defeat after failing to chase 206 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru at Chinnaswamy. Despite needing only 18 runs from the final 12 balls with five wickets left, they collapsed under pressure to finish at 194/9. Josh Hazlewood turned the game with a brilliant penultimate over, conceding just one run and taking two wickets.
Former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar expressed disappointment at Rajasthan’s lack of game awareness. He questioned their ability to close out matches, especially with experienced coach Rahul Dravid guiding them. Gavaskar said the Royals showed little planning and clarity in key moments. He also observed that even though some batters are inexperienced, a more composed and tactical approach should have been visible.
“With Rajasthan Royals, I’m actually talking about the earlier matches where I wasn’t at the ground, I just saw them. So, you’re not always able to get the feeling of what’s really happening. But here, I was at the ground, and you could actually see the kind of cricket that was being played. And with someone like Rahul Dravid as the coach, it was quite baffling, it was unthinking cricket,” Gavaskar said while speaking to Star Sports.
“Where is the thought process there? You can’t expect inexperienced players to always get it right, but still… It’s just a different kind of cricket. Dravid was always so precise in his thinking, and I would’ve thought that kind of approach would’ve seeped into some of the Rajasthan batters,” he added.
The Royals have won only 2 of their 9 games and sit near the bottom of the table, with playoff hopes almost entirely extinguished.
