DRAVID ADMITS IMPROVEMENT NEEDED

The captain of Rajasthan Royals, Rahul Dravid, has admitted that his team needs a bit of improvement in bowling department.

The Royals won their first match in the ongoing IPL against Delhi daredevils on Saturday. They won that match by just 5 runs.

At one stage in the match, the Rajasthan bowlers were struggling to stop Delhi batsmen from hitting boundaries. In the middle overs of the innings, there were quite a few boundaries hit and Daredevils were very close to the target at the end of the 18th over. They just had to score 17 runs in the remaining two overs.

David Warner was batting at his best and Delhi was clearly the favourite when the 19th over began. But, the last two overs turned the match upside down.

Rahul Shukla, a youngster from Jharkhand, was asked to bowl the 19th over and he did the job superbly for his skipper. He hit the yorker length more often than not in that over and gave away only 8 runs. David Warner also ran himself out on the third ball of that over which pushed Delhi back.

If the 19th over was a good one, the 20th bowled by Kevon Cooper was even better. The tall West Indian all rounder dismissed Johan Botha and Andre Russel on the 3rd and the 5th ball of that over respectively and gave away only 3 runs to ensure the victory for Royals.

In the post match press conference, Rahul Dravid said, “Frankly speaking, our bowling was not that good in the first 10 overs. We bowled quite a few loose balls and allowed them to maintain a very good run rate.”

“However, the boys kept their nerve at the end and pulled that off. It’s really nice to be on the winning side in the first match.”