IPL 2018: 4 strategic blunders that have placed Rajasthan Royals on the verge of elimination

#3 Persistence with D’Arcy Short despite his struggles

D’Arcy Short

The top scorer in last year’s Big Bash League was always going to be a big draw in the IPL auction and hence it was no surprise when D’Arcy Short was bought by RR for Rs. 4 crores after a round of heavy bidding (his base price was Rs. 20 lakhs). However, he has found it difficult to get going in the IPL and simply could not get the hang of the pace on the pitches in India.

He struggled to push the scoring and that hampered RR immensely. That being said, any other team would have seen the problem and immediately corrected the situation by dropping. RR, on the other hand, played him in as many as 7 games and that is half of the games that a team plays in the league stage. He averaged only 16.42 and recorded an abysmal strike rate of 116.16. This has been an incredible piece of bad strategy from the RR and something they are going to look back upon with contrition if they fail to make it to the playoffs.