Rahul Tripathi made up for the absence of Jos Buttler: Ajinkya Rahane

Shreyas Gopal’s brilliant haul of 4/16 kept Rajasthan Royals in the race for IPL 2018 play-offs with a 30-run win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in Jaipur on Saturday. The 24-year old was included in the playing XI in place of Anureet Singh and skipper Ajinkya Rahane was all praise for the leg-spinner after his team’s crucial victory.

“Shreyas (Gopal) was bowling quite well and with two right-hander batsmen at the crease, I thought that he will have a good chance to take wickets and he delivered. He was able to provide us with crucial breakthroughs, specially AB de Villiers, and he was supported well by the experienced Ish Sodhi on the other end,” Rahane said during the post-match press conference.

The other star performer for Rajasthan Royals on Saturday was Rahul Tripathi, who scored an unbeaten 80 off 58 balls to take the hosts to a competitive total of 164/5. Tripathi was called into action quite early in the innings after Jofra Archer (0) was dismissed in the second over and he stitched together a brilliant 99-run partnership with Rahane to steady the innings. The skipper was impressed with Tripathi’s performance and he said that the 27-year old more than made it up for Buttler’s absence.

“It all clicked together for us today. We missed (Jos) Buttler today but Tripathi more than made it up for his absence. He is a quality player and he played brilliantly under pressure. The innings was vital for us today and it was the reason why we were able to post a competitive total,” he said.

‘Needed more partnerships’

AB de Villiers was the best performer for RCB on Saturday with a 35-ball 53, but the visitors suffered a collapse of 24/5 in five overs to lose momentum. As a result, they lacked solid partnerships and pacer Umesh Yadav pointed it out as the main reason behind his team’s defeat.

“We were unable to execute our plans properly and we gave away our wickets quite easily. We needed one or two good partnerships, but that did not happen,” Umesh told the media.

Yadav was once again the pick of the RCB bowlers with three wickets and he ended the season with an impressive haul of 20 wickets. Although he was happy with his individual show in IPL 2018, he pointed out that the team always comes first.

“I think I bowled well this season and was able to get quite a number of wickets. Reaching the play-offs was my biggest priority but I am disappointed for the team,” he added.