IPL 2020 | Our performance will only climb from hereon, claims Robin Uthappa

After two breath-taking high-scoring games in Sharjah, where the longest boundary is 10 meters shorter than the shortest boundary in Dubai, Rajasthan Royals suffered a 37-run loss at the hands of Kolkata Knight Riders. The batsmen never got going and the batting order seemed to be a mess after Sanju Samson dismissal that added extra pressure on the middle order. Robin Uthappa believes that the side failed to accustom themselves to the size of the venue but he added that the performance will only climb from now on.

"We have played practice matches on bigger grounds as well. So, it's just a matter of adjusting to the pace of the wicket. As we play more games here, we'll get better at it. Today, we've got a good sense of how this wicket's gonna play. It's pretty similar to our practice wickets. We are looking forward to the next games as well. Our performance will only climb from hereon,” Uthappa said in the post-match press conference.

"In hindsight, you feel you could have taken a little more time. We got the sense that the wicket changed a little bit. Post the first innings, I thought that the wicket began stopping a little bit. Obviously, it was a used wicket. I think towards the end, the wicket started getting a little tired. In hindsight, we felt we could have taken a little bit of time to get adjusted. And then take the attack to the bowlers," he added.

After Rajasthan Royals chased down a humongous target in the last game thanks to a special innings by Rahul Tewatia, they backed themselves to chase in Dubai, even though batting second has been a difficult affair in Dubai in the IPL so far. Uthappa said that they took the conditions into account.

"We chased a big score in the last game. Obviously, there is a lot of confidence coming in from that. We felt that the wicket would play well. We play a certain brand of cricket and today we continued to play that as a batting line-up. Obviously, there have been learnings from this game and those learnings will be taken into our stride and applied in the games to come."