Cape Town, April 19 (Inditop) Defending champions Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne described their 75-run loss to Bangalore Royal Challengers in their Indian Premier League (IPL) tie here Saturday as “embarrassing” and felt poor shot selection led to their downfall.
Chasing a 134-run target, Rajasthan Royals were bundled out for 58, the lowest score in the IPL so far.
“It is pretty embarrassing. We are the champions and we should have backed ourselves. Bangalore had a bad last year and they came out firing. Chasing 134, we should have won with couple of overs left,” Warne said in the post match conference.
“The shot selections of our batsmen were bad. We will have a look at the top three or four batting positions in the next match.”
The former Australian spin wizard, however, hoped that his team will bounce back in the tournament like last year.
“We had a very bad start last year, outclassed by Delhi Daredevils in the first match, but then we bounced back. Hopefully we will come back.”
Bangalore Royal Challengers captain Kevin Pietersen, who made his IPL debut with the win, said it was a team effort.
“The boys played fantastic cricket. Rahul (Dravid) was outstanding and it was a real team effort. We took wickets at regular intervals. Praveen (Kumar) was fantastic, he is clever bowler and street smart,” Pietersen said.
“Then we have Anil Kumble. You can’t buy his experience from any shop. The man is a legend. We played really well.”
rounak