In a closely fought affair at the Indian Premier League 2021, Rajasthan Royals suffered a last-ball defeat at the hands of the Punjab Kings by 4 runs. Rajasthan needed 5 runs to win on the last ball of the innings but captain Sanju Samson was caught in the deep in an effort to hit a six as his century innings went in vain.
While his decision to not to take a single at the penultimate delivery and rotate the strike to Chris Morris left the cricket world divided, former cricketer and IndiaTV expert Maninder Singh expressed his disappointment over Samson's strategy. He believed that the way Sanju played his innings, Rajasthan should have won the match.
In India TV's special programme 'Cricket Dhamaka', Maninder said, "Sanju Samson should have taken a run from the fourth ball of the last over but he did not do it. In such a situation, the strike would have come to Chris Morris and only a boundary was needed to win which was possible but he did not do so. Sanju's intention was to end the match by hitting a six but you cannot hit a six every time under pressure.
"Sanju's innings was excellent but he came in the end and gave everything bad. I had also said earlier that the Punjab team has scored 221 runs. This score can also be chased on the same pitch and Rajasthan had reached very close to it as well," Maninder added.
Sanju earlier won the toss and invited Punjab to bat first. Mayank Agarwal (14) and captain KL Rahul (91) got off to a quick start for Punjab but Mayank soon returned to the pavilion.
Rahul then handled the innings. Apart from this, Deepak Hooda scored a smashing knock of 64 runs in 28 balls while Chris Gayle also contributed 40 runs.
In this way Punjab lost 6 wickets in the prescribed 20 overs to score a score of 221 runs. Rajasthan started off to chase the target and it started badly. Team opener batsman Ben Stokes returned to the pavilion without opening an account while Manan Vohra could score just 12 runs.
At the same time, Captain Samson, who came to bat at number three, worked to raise the score of the team, and he scored 119 runs in 63 balls. This was Sanju's third century in IPL.
