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Former New Zealand fast bowler and current Rajasthan Royals bowling coach Shane Bond criticized the poor form of RR bowlers after the team’s defeat to GT in Jaipur on Saturday.
The former New Zealand fast bowler said that in the current environment where runs are flowing at a fast pace, bowlers need to develop their skills. Shane Bond also talked about RR’s problems in qualifying for the playoffs after their loss to Gujarat Titans.
Rajasthan Royals faced three consecutive defeats at home.
RR’s defeat to GT means they have now failed to win even one of their three matches in IPL 2026 at their home ground, the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur. In fact, last season they were able to achieve only 1 win in 5 matches there.
On Saturday, Royals captain Yashasvi Jaiswal decided to bowl first, but it had the opposite effect. Shubman Gill and Sai Sudarshan added 118 runs for the first wicket, in which Sudarshan was out for 55 runs. Gill played the ball perfectly and scored 84 runs from 44 balls, before Washington Sundar produced a perfect finish to take GT to 229. RR’s chase was completely resolved.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi was aggressive, but none of the other batsmen could get off to a good start. Player of the match Rashid Khan cut short Dhruv Jurel’s cameo and also dismissed Donovan Ferreira in that over. Ravindra Jadeja scored the maximum 38 runs, but Rashid’s four wickets were so much that it was not possible to recover from them. RR lost by 77 runs.
It was a disappointing performance from our side – Shane Bond
After the match, Bond spoke in the press conference and talked about RR’s disappointing performance in the match. He said, “It was a disappointing performance from us. It was a really big game for us, the same number of points in both games.”
“Haven’t looked at the table in terms of net run-rate, but we have to win two or maybe all three of our last three to make the playoffs. We had five games every three days, I think we were quite poor after that. We weren’t that sharp,” he said.
Bowlers need to develop their skills- Shane Bond on RR bowlers
Rajasthan Royals bowling coach Shane Bond talked about how the bowlers also need to develop themselves. While batsmen were constantly coming up with new ways of doing things, bowlers were not necessarily doing the same.
“Batsmen are playing upper cuts, reverses and scoops. They have developed their shots. Bowlers have to develop their skills too. For them, this is an opportunity to be like: ‘I can do this, I can make myself a lot of money and become a superstar.’
“But we haven’t seen that consistently across the board. It’s not easy for the bowlers. But you’re either scared of what’s happening, or see it as an opportunity to improve and make your name famous, especially if you’re an Indian,” Shane Bond said.
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