RR vs KKR | Player Ratings - Steve Smith innings under scanner as Rajasthan Royals gift Kolkata Knight Riders comfortable win

Ajinkya Rahane (3/10): It would be unfair on Rahane to outrightly blame him for being dismissed in the second over. It was the very first ball that Prasidh Krishna bowled tonight and judging the line became difficult for the Rajasthan skipper. Good application and proper feet movement could have helped, but let’s admit, it was a very good delivery.

Jos Buttler (4/10): Comparatively slower, and never tried to shift gears quickly tonight. Buttler’s approach was surprising because Steve Smith, at the other end, was taking his own sweet time to find his feet in the game. The Englishman knew that he had the shots at his disposal and could have played them early to put pressure on KKR bowlers. 

Steven Smith (8/10): It is easy to be critical of his performance tonight, for the fact that he batted in just one gear, but the wicket was tricky as well. He needed someone to take risk at the other end, because Buttler’s dismissal put a lot of pressure to stay back and anchor the innings. But as Brian Lara noted, another 15-20 runs could’ve helped the team’s cause.

Rahul Tripathi (2/10): The wicket was playing slow and the run-making was kind of tricky in Jaipur, but Tripathi showed more discomfort than he normally should have. Despite Harry Gurney comfortably slowing the ball down, Tripathi didn’t wait to judge them and the top edge was nothing but the byproduct of that approach. 

Ben Stokes (1/10): Coming out to bat in the 16th over, with seven wickets in hand, the only rational equation was to going bang-bang. But for some weird reason, Stokes never really tried to hit any one of them and managed to score just seven runs off 14 balls. Not expected of someone who knows to hit big sixes for fun.

Prashant Chopra (6/10): The Himachal Pradesh batsman has been one of the most destructive batsmen going around in the Indian domestic cricket, but he couldn’t get to bat tonight due to the top order scoring runs at a snail's pace. He would’ve loved to come ahead of Tripathi and showcase his hitting prowess. 

Krishnappa Gowtham (1/10): It was a suicidal tactics to send Gowtham to bowl the second over of the run-chase despite knowing that Sunil Narine was there in the middle. No prize for guessing, he bowled one of the most expensive overs in this years IPL, as Narine took him with absolute disdain to milk 22 runs in one over. He never bowled after that to cap off a horrible day on the field.

Jofra Archer (8/10): Once again, Archer ensured that he holds the key to Royals’ recovery this season. He was too good with the new ball and didn’t allow the KKR batsmen any room to score as fluently as they were doing against other bowlers. Possibly this can be a slap on the wrist for those who called him a narcissistic individual on Twitter after he labelled himself as one of the best T20 bowlers of modern day cricket. 

Shreyas Gopal (6/10): Gopal’s introduction was so late that the team had almost lost the plot, and his two wickets didn’t make much of a difference. From a singular stand-point though, those were two well-earned wickets, helping him take his wicket-tally to Eight in IPL 2019.

Dhawal Kulkarni (6/10): Stats don’t always tell the full story and in this case, they don’t tell how good Dhawal Kulkarni was tonight. A simple catch was dropped, then the bails didn’t fall, and Kulkarni had to sustain all these in his first spell tonight. His match figure could’ve been very different had luck favoured him a bit. 

Sudhesan Midhun(3/10): The leg-spinner had a forgettable IPL debut, but he attracted attention by regularly giving the ball drift on the onward angle. Googlies, however, remained largely absent, but hopefully, he will learn from his mistake going forward.