Ranji Trophy | Hyderabad and Rajasthan coaches back their sides’ option of playing for the draw

Relief of avoiding defeat trumped disappointment of missing victory for Hyderabad and Rajasthan head coaches D.B. Ravi Teja and Anshu Jain, respectively, after the sides settled for a draw in their Ranji Trophy clash at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here.

For a brief period before lunch, the visitors purposefully eyed victory, but lost their way, eventually happy to cut their losses and shake hands.

“They have players who play in T20 leagues and had their chances, because they had wickets in hand. But our bowlers came back well by bowling tight lines. The wicket was doing a bit, so they didn’t take the chance to go for the win,” Ravi explained.

“If we had lost one or two more wickets, Hyderabad would’ve come on top. We had to keep that in mind. If you’re behind by 270 runs, you cannot go blindly. We lost three wickets. Otherwise, we would have come on top,” Anshu concurred, opting for caution over risky audacity.

Rajasthan captain Mahipal Lomror, meanwhile, said his side needs to improve on multiple fronts ahead of its clash with Delhi starting November 16.

“We were disappointed with our fielding. We dropped a few catches and our ground fielding wasn’t the best. We set really high benchmarks for ourselves. We also need to break this pattern of losing wickets in a cluster.”

He highlighted openers Salman Khan and Sachin Yadav finding form and Kunal Singh Rathore’s contributions behind the stumps – taking 10 catches – as a few heartening positives for Rajasthan.