IPL 2022 | Consistency is the most important thing in terms of calling wides, says Kumar Sangakkara
Rajasthan Royals lost the game against Kolkata Knight Riders by 7 wickets on Monday after a poor batting performance by the franchise. The game also saw some debatable wide calls when the match was at a crucial stage and RR's Director of Cricket and head coach Kumar Sangakkara spoke about the same.
The two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Rajasthan Royals comprehensively by 7 wickets to win their fourth match of IPL 2022. However, what caught everyone's eye and became a topic of debate was the three-wide calls made by umpire Nitin Pandit when Prasidh Krishna was bowling to Nitish Rana in the 18th over of the match and proved to be vital in the context of the game.Â
RR's Director of Cricket and head coach Kumar Sangakkara talked about the same and said he expects some consistency when it comes to wide calls. “Consistency is the most important thing in terms of calling wides. There are some new rules where you can’t create a wide, but destroy a wide by moving around the crease and before the delivery is made, any movement that you make becomes a starting point for the wide line to start moving.
“It’s what it is at the end of the day, but at the same time, we’ve got to realise that we didn’t play good enough cricket in the last two games,” Sangakkara said in the post-match press conference.
Rajasthan Royals have now lost four games in the tournament and Kumar Sangakkara said that the Royals did not get enough runs in the game against Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders. “Two scratchy games, we didn’t get enough runs on the board. Against Mumbai, we were 130/4 with four overs to go and 170 should have been on the board. Today, we just got a little bit bogged down in the middle overs. Sanju (Samson) batted really well and (Shimron) Hetmyer, at the backend, got us to some sort of respectability,” he said.
He praised the bowlers for taking the game till the last over of the match saying, “The bowlers in both games did their utmost to take us into the last over. But a lot to improve on, and a lot to think about for the players and all of us and get better as we get into the next game”.Â