The Royals had a solid start to the competition and appeared to be among the favourites to advance to the play-offs.

A star for the Rajasthan Royals comments on Sandeep Sharma’s no-ball

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 has been over for about a week, with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) winning the championship for a record-tying fifth time. CSK once again demonstrated why they are the heavyweights in this league, but Rajasthan Royals, a squad that had put together a formidable unit, faltered as the competition got more competitive.

The Royals had a solid start to the competition and appeared to be among the favourites to advance to the play-offs. The club had a run of bad luck, though, as they ended fifth with 14 points from the same amount of games in the race to the playoffs.

Sandeep Sharma’s no ball on the final delivery against Sunrisers Hyderabad was one of the few games where Rajasthan let the match to slide from a winning position.

Sandeep did everything right and got Abdul Samad out in the penultimate delivery, which had SRH needing five runs, but the hooter allowed SRH another chance, which they took full advantage of.

In an interview with News 18 some weeks after the incident, Rajasthan Royals spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was asked if he spoke to the bowler about it.

Naturally, you feel horrible when that sort of event occurs, Chahal remarked. I believe that each person deserves their own place. On that specific night, I didn’t talk to him, but the next day, we did. Any of the bowlers might experience this, which is OK. Just that those things ought to be viewed as lessons.

The spinner said, “Look, like I said, stuff happens. Rajasthan saw both highs and lows during the season. We have 14 games, so anything can happen. Other teams have also experienced the same situation, so it’s not just with us. They had done well in the first half, but the second half was less effective. I won’t offer many explanations, but we just didn’t play well.