Not ideal situation to take risk: Sangakkara on Miller's dismissal against DC

Abu Dhabi [UAE], September 25 (ANI): After stumbling to a 33-run defeat against Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021, Rajasthan Royals' Director of Cricket Kumar Sangakkara on Saturday admitted that David Miller could have avoided taking on Ravichandran Ashwin especially when the side had lost a couple of wickets early.

Chasing 155, Rajasthan Royals was left struggling at 55/5 in the 12th over and skipper Sanju Samson's unbeaten knock of 70 runs did not prove enough as Delhi Capitals went on to register a victory.

"I think you can look at David Miller's dismissal in a couple of ways. He is an attacking player and this is a shot he usually plays. Unfortunately, he was up against a really smart bowler with a lot of experience. Probably right, it was not the ideal situation to take a risk, we had lost a couple of wickets. But that's T20 cricket," said Sangakkara while replying to an ANI query during the post-match press conference.

With this win, the Rishabh Pant-led side went to the top spot in the points table. On the other hand, the Royals remain static at the sixth spot with eight points.

"I think it was a tough one for skipper Sanju Samson, he was batting well. All we needed was someone to stay with him and unfortunately, losing wickets regularly did not allow Sanju to run free early on. Delhi boys bowled smartly and they managed to stay away from areas of Sanju's strengths. We can go back and analyse whichever way, we should have chased 154 with the batting we had, and we were just not good enough on the day," said Sangakkara.

Earlier, Shreyas Iyer top-scored with a knock of 43 runs off 32 balls as Delhi Capitals posted 154/6 in the allotted twenty overs. For Rajasthan Royals, Mustafizur Rahman and Chetan Sakariya returned with two wickets each.

"We have the options for sure, it is unfortunate that we had a couple of injury concerns. It meant that Lewis and Morris did not play. It is important that whoever plays, sticks to the game plans and understands what's happening. 154 was a great total that we restricted the Capitals to and all we needed to do was make sure that we were not careless. Unfortunately, Delhi came hard at us and they bowled smartly," said Sangakkara.

"I would not worry too much about the lower-middle order. They got us out of trouble in the first half of the IPL and I am sure they will come good here as well," he added.

Rajasthan Royals will next square off against SunRisers Hyderabad at the Dubai International Stadium on Monday. (ANI)