Ahmedabad: Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson credited his team's first ever win against defending champions Gujarat Titans to its strategy to rotate the bowlers and the blitz of Shimron Hetmyer. The bowling strategy helped Sanju's side to contain the Hardik Pandya side to 177 here on Sunday night and eventually to eke out a memorable win over.
The IPL 2008 champions had played three matches against Gujarat during the last season and lost all of them including the final. The Royals were off to a poor start despite keeping the Titans to a manageable total. Thanks to the powerplay which turned the fortune to the Royals, who ended up beating the Titans by three wickets and four balls to spare.
Sanju-"I'm very happy to be on the winning side. I think it was very important to rotate the bowlers. They were going hard at our spinners. After the timeout, they were playing some quality cricket shots and we needed to respect that but I'm very proud of our team for restricting them to a 170-odd score," said Samson.
When the Royals spinners Adam Zampa and Raichandran Ashwin were hammered by Shubman Gill and Hardik Pandya in the seventh and eighth overs, Sanju brought in changes and rotated the bowlers. He brought in Trent Boult and Yuzvendra Chahal -- the duo managed to curtail the flow of runs.
The captain was all praise for the West Indian batsman Hetmyer who remain unbeaten on 56 off 26 balls, for the match-winning knock. "I don't think he likes easy situations. We don't mind putting him in these situations," Sanju said on a lighter-vein. Sanju scored a half-centry.
Also read- Hetmyer blitz helps Royals break jinx against Titans
Hetmyer- Hetmyer who was adjudged the Player of the Match revealed his grudge against the Titans. In the post-match presentation, Hetmyer said, "I just really wanted to win against these guys because they beat us three times last year so it was a bit of revenge really. I just practice it really. It helps to practice with that mindset that you're a couple of wicket down and you need 100 runs with eight overs left."
"You just try to program your mind that way and so far it's working. I was pretty happy to be honest to be facing (a spinner for the final over). I was just focused on getting a double off the first ball and then see what happens after that," he added.
Hardik Pandya-As for the Titans, skipper Hardik said the results would have been different if the team's batting unit had mopped up more runs on the board. "A lot of matches left. We still need to play a lot of good cricket even if we had won today. I felt we were short some runs at the innings break. They bowled some good overs but we should have gone harder to put the game (out of their reach) and get a 200 total. When I was watching outside, I did feel we were maybe 10 runs short," Hardik said.