'At least it can be a dead ball' - Ajinkya Rahane's plea after Chris Lynn's reprieve

Rajasthan Royals captain Ajinkya Rahane wanted the ball that pinged Chris Lynn's stumps without dislodging the bails to be treated as a dead ball, he revealed after Royals lost their home match against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday.

Lynn was on 13 at the time, and off the 12th ball he faced - the ball after Rahul Tripathi had dropped Sunil Narine, the other batsman - Dhawal Kulkarni drew an inside edge that hit leg stump. However, the zing bails didn't dislodge despite lighting up, and the ball ended up ricocheting to the fine-leg boundary. Lynn - and Knight Riders - awarded four runs, adding insult to the Royals' injury.

Rahane was seen having a discussion with the umpires after the incident. "The rules are the rules, but I told the umpires, 'at least don't give it as a boundary'. Already the T20 format is so tough for bowlers, and if you get such a situation, at least that ball can be a dead ball," he said after Knight Riders had romped to victory by eight wickets, with 6.1 overs to spare.

"That was my conversation with the umpires. But see, there is nothing to be gained from brooding about whatever is not in our control."

This was the second time in IPL 2019 that Royals had seen one of their bowlers hit the stumps but not get their man. In their match against Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk, Jofra Archer had gone through MS Dhoni and nicked the stumps before the batsman had scored a run. Dhoni went on to hit a match-winning 75 not out off 46 balls then, and on Sunday, Lynn made use of his reprieve to smash 50 off 32.

"I always like to ride my luck," Lynn told Harry Gurney on iplt20.com. "It is a T20 game and I like to go hard in the first six overs. After I inside-edged it, I heard a second noise and I thought, 'he's either going to catch it, or the bail's going to come off'. But I got lucky. I told the umpire, I saw him put up byes, so I went down and he actually changed it. I'm happy to ride that luck. I might actually go to a casino tonight if there's one here!"

The loss left Royals with just two points from five matches, sitting at seventh on the table with only the winless Royal Challengers Bangalore below them, and the other six teams at least four points clear.

Rahane though, said that there was no need to panic yet.

"It's not yet late, nine games are left. And things can change quickly in this format. What has happened has happened," Rahane said. "When you lose, you think more deeply about it. When you win, you don't think as much. I think there's no need to panic or brood too much about this loss.

"Out of five games, this is the only one that has gone very badly for us. In the last four matches, we played well. Yes, we could have won three matches but we didn't. But the T20 format is such that you have to take a risk somewhere and back yourself. I don't think it's any individual player's fault. We win as a team and lose as a team. So we need to improve as a team. The quicker we learn, I'm sure the results will change automatically."

The slowness of the pitch at Sawai Mansingh Stadium contributed to Royals mustering only 139 for 3, but Rahane didn't want to point fingers for the below-par total.

"We thought 150-160 would be challenging. But still, if we made 140, and found it difficult to score, we can learn from that as a bowling unit," he said. "Especially when playing at home, the quicker we adjust to the pitch in terms of what lengths and lines we should bowl, the better. Overall, there are lots of things for us to learn as a team.

"We knew the pitch will be slow. We have practiced here also a lot. It's not right to give an excuse that we can't play on a slow pitch. Like I said, we should know as a batting unit when to take risks and when not to."

Gurney, who was the man of the match on IPL debut with 2 for 25 in four overs, also used the lack of pace to his advantage. "The pitch looked quite dry, so quite early on in my spell I bowled a cutter and saw a bit of purchase. So I knew that for the rest of my spell, a majority of my balls would be cutters," Gurney said. "Thankfully the ball gripped and I was quite effective tonight."