Rajasthan Royals defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 24 runs, inching closer to securing a play-offs berth in the 15th season of the Indian Premier League on Sunday. Both the teams are now tied on 16 points from 13 matches and need one more win to confirm their place in the playoffs. 

Lucknow skipper KL Rahul rued his batters’ collective failure in a few matches in this IPL.

“I thought it was a gettable target. Good pitch, obviously something there with the new ball. We bowled well to restrict them to that total. We backed ourselves but we couldn’t execute. Once again the batting group hasn’t been able to perform collectively. We need to go back and work on it. Pune was a lot more harder and lot more in the pitch there than this one,” Lucknow skipper KL Rahul said.

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LSG got off to a terrible start vs Punjab as Trent Boult (2/18) sent back two of their top batters — Quinton de Kock (7) and Ayush Badoni (0) — in successive deliveries at the beginning of the third over.

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“When you lose wickets early it puts pressure on you. We have lost three-four games in the powerplay as a batting unit. Make sure you find a way to stay in there when you play quality bowlers and give a good start. I don’t think we are going to do anything different. Just about going out there and executing. Obviously in pressure you want to do one thing but you end up doing something else. If we can hold our nerves and give ourselves a chance to play the new ball or a good spell. If you get through that spell you always have enough time to make up. We’ve got power in our batting line, so it is just about playing smart when the bowlers are bowling a good spell,” Rahul said.