The Rajasthan Royals (RR) suffered their first loss of IPL 2026, losing to Sunrisers Hyderabad by 57 runs on Monday. At the heart of their defeat were two IPL debutants – Praful Hinge and Sakibul Hussain – who shared eight wickets between them to clinch victory for the hosts, their first at home this season.
One of Hinge’s four wickets was Riyan Parag, who fell for four runs, and the RR captain said that the batsmen were surprised by the pace at which the ball came onto the bat, which eventually led to RR reeling at 9/5 inside the powerplay.
“I felt it was a mix of everything. I felt we were a little surprised by the pace of the ball when it left the hand and how it came off the wicket. The first three of them, if you watch them really closely, Vaibhav expected it a little quicker, and came a little stickier. Same for Dhruv (Jurel), nib-backed in. Same for Jaiswal, he hits that nine out of 10 times, and that stopped.”
“I got a really full ball, I couldn’t hit that. So I feel, I won’t say we were unlucky, but then it was a mix of a lot of variables that came into play, hence we couldn’t connect those shots,” Parag said at the post-match presentation.
The right-hander added that he felt SRH got a score that was 30 runs over par and admitted that RR could have tried a few more variations in the first innings.
“Initially, I think we were okay, but then in the middle overs, you’re right, they were 30 runs over power for sure. I think we could have found better options, used the wicket a little bit more, used more slower balls, maybe slower bumpers, wide yorkers or whatever it is, but I think just the execution lacked a bit, nothing about the quality of our bowlers,” Parag said.
The RR skipper was asked about Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who fell for a first-ball duck, and he said that the left-hander had already gained a lot of experience in his short career.
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“The way he’s been batting, he should definitely be giving me batting tips. He’s just enjoying. I feel today he is going to be really sad because he got out on the first ball, and hopefully, when Kolkata comes, he’s going to be as you have already seen him”.
“I feel there’s one thing you gain every time you step onto a cricket field, which is experience, and regardless of his age, he might be 15 years old, but he has gained a lot of experience playing last year.”
“From the sidelines, you do gain a little bit of experience, you do understand how the game works, how IPL works, but then him having played seven games and then keeping that momentum, playing the World Cup, Asia Cups and he’s scored runs everywhere he’s gone, I think he’s earned a lot of experience from those games, being in match situations, winning games, scoring a lot of runs, big runs, like daddy hundreds, right? So, once he came here, the prep that he has put in, I am not surprised at all,” he added.
