JOIN US“You have to say well played Deccan,” Steyn, who wrecked the Chargers with a sensational first spell, said on Tuesday evening. “There was some good captaincy but also probably some bad shots from our side as well. Obviously, we didn’t have our thinking cap on as we wanted to and we came up short.
“But we do know that we have got two remaining games and those are the two most important games. What happened yesterday is in the past, there is not much we can do about it now. We have to make sure we play our best cricket in the remaining two games.”
Reflecting on the crowded points table, the South African went on, “If you look at the log, it’s heating up quite nicely. We haven’t taken our chances in certain games that we should have won. Unfortunately, we are in a similar boat as everyone else. We’ve got two games left, must-wins for us to secure a semifinal place. The semis are in Bangalore, so it’s very important for us to try and get there.”
When the Challengers met the Royals at the Chinnaswamy stadium last month, they relied on a regular diet of the short stuff to curb the batsmen, particularly Yusuf Pathan. “The game plans aren’t going to change much for the players we have targeted,” Steyn agreed. “At this phase of the competition, you will find that players who have been there, done that are the players that are going to be standing up with their performances. If you can target those players and cut down their performances, then the rest of the team tends to follow in the same direction.
“We will target some players with similar kind of plans that we had in Bangalore. Obviously, if the conditions don’t suit us, we will have a different kind of game plan but we know our plans well. If we can execute them correctly, you tend to find that you do better than most sides.”
Teams (from):
Rajasthan Royals: Shane Warne (capt), Naman Ojha, Michael Lumb, Shane Watson, Yusuf Pathan, Faiz Fazal, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Adam Voges, Abhishek Raut, Siddharth Trivedi, Aditya Dole, Morne Morkel, Paras Dogra, Shaun Tait, Johan Botha, S Asnodkar, Sumit Narwal, Munaf Patel, Amit Singh, S Wagh, Kamran Khan.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Anil Kumble (capt), Manish Pandey, Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid, Ross Taylor, Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli, Cameron White, R Vinay Kumar, Dale Steyn, KP Appanna, Kevin Pietersen, Roelof van der Merwe, Mark Boucher, Praveen Kumar, B Akhil, Udit Patel, S Sriram.