It was an exceptional innings: Sangakkara on Padikkal’s maiden IPL ton

I thought it was an exceptional innings. He played really, really well. He played the shots that he knew he could play and he kind of anticipated some of the deliveries that were going to be bowled with the fields set.

Mumbai: Rajasthan Royals’ Director of Cricket Kumar Sangakkara lavished praise on Devdutt Padikkal, who scored his maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) ton and helped the team register a thumping win over Rajasthan Royals here at the Wankhede on Thursday evening.

Padikkal’s unbeaten 101 and Kohli’s 72 not out helped RCB beat Rajasthan by 10 wickets, thus registering their fourth straight win in the ongoing tournament.

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“I thought it was an exceptional innings. He played really, really well. He played the shots that he knew he could play and he kind of anticipated some of the deliveries that were going to be bowled with the fields set. I thought he showed a lot of maturity to bat through,” said Sangakkara in a virtual press conference.

“Of course, he was batting with Virat so you know there’s a lot of conversation out there, talking about what to do and how to do it. And it was an exceptional innings; very, very impressive,” he added.

RCB didn’t lose a wicket as they managed to chase the target quite comfortably in the end. Sangakkara wants Rajasthan Royals’ bowlers to read the game a little bit better to be ahead in the match.

“In terms of our bowling to have slightly better defensive options to try and anticipate and read the game a little bit better to what the batsman might do,” said Sangakkara.

“So we got to kind of change our thinking a little bit on that and have a little more tactical nous when it comes to executing the game plan. But it’s about playing good hard positive cricket, enjoying yourself and really expressing yourself, that’s the mantra here,” he added.

The former Sri Lanka skipper feels when wickets are flat like in Wankhede it requires a joint effort from bowlers, batsmen and fielders to ensure the things are right in place.

“But at the same time execution is really, really important, especially on wickets that are quite flat and it has to be a joint effort between the batsman and bowler and also the fielding. So we’ve got to get things right,” said Sangakkara.

“We gotta get better really quickly. It’s only been four games, but you know, games can go by quite quickly so we’ve got a lot of thinking to do. First recover quickly and then get back to play some good cricket that we know we can,” he added.

Rajasthan Royals will next lock horns with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Saturday.