IPL 2023: Ravi Shastri unhappy with KL Rahul, Riyan Parag's approach following low-scoring tie in Jaipur

Two batters, KL Rahul and Riyan Parag, have been heavily criticised for their unimpactful approach during the low-scoring tie in Jaipur on Wednesday night. Former India coach Ravi Shastri has come down hard on bothfor not showing the right intent, which eventually changed the course of the result. While he slammed KL for taking too long before getting going, he questioned Parag’s run of form during RR’s chase.

LSG batted first against Rajasthan, and KL Rahul played a first-over maiden against Trent Boult - that raised questions all across. More so, that he even attained an unwanted record to his name by becoming a batter to play the most number of first-over maidens (11) in IPL since 2014. Riding on that, he took longer than expected to get going, and even after getting dropped, the right-handed batter failed to capitalise, scoring just 39 off 32 balls. This knock drew a lot of criticism, with Shastri also jumping onto it, saying,

"Absolutely (needs to get the strike up). All that talk about 160, I don't buy it. When you have two chances, if you convert that 39 to 60 or 70, 160 becomes 175. You need someone in the top 3 to carry on and play that long inning," Ravi Shastri told Star Sports after the match.

While chasing, Rajasthan, who recently defeated Gujarat Titans in one of the best chases this season, failed to hunt down a mediocre 155 despite remaining in a strong position during the chase.

They got off to a great start with both openers doing well, but following a cluster of wickets in the middle overs, RRwere left playing the chasing game. With this,Riyan Parag and Devdutt Padikkal, both of whom were expected to finish the job for the team, failed to do as RR lost the game by ten runs.

Parag, who is already in hot water for his poor series of scores this season, didn’t get going and took too many balls to settle down, which eventually put pressure on both in the end.

“They lost Samson, they lost Buttler and Jaiswal, but still they had enough, a lot of depth. I think that period of play when Riyan Parag came in and the way he played his first eight balls changed the course of the match. Padikkal, at the other end, lost his rhythm as well.

“Runs started coming in singles, and there was a period of 28 balls that stage without a boundary. When you go through that much time without a boundary, you are asking for trouble,” Shastri told to Star Sports.

Despite losing the match, RR is still at the top of the table with four wins from six games, while LSG, who also has similar points but a lower NRR, is second.