So near, yet so far - the story of Rajasthan Royals' season

There is a feeling that Rajasthan Royals (RR) have been terrible chasers in IPL 2025. Until the very last game of their season, they were able to run down a target only once in eight attempts. And that needed a 14-year-old to perform a miracle.

On that basis, there is a temptation to say that RR kept betting against themselves this season. They won the toss seven times and chose to bat second each time. There are much more private ways to explore masochism. Sanju Samson admitted to second thoughts at the toss in the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) game.

"To be very honest, we were thinking, should we set a score and try and defend because that's what was not happening," he said on the broadcast. "And then I felt like there's no hiding in this game. Let's go out and face it and prove that we can still chase down a score."

A franchise that made it to the final in 2022 and fell just one step short of that in 2024 isn't in the business of making mistakes. Least of all the same one over and over. Over this three-year period, RR had a win-loss ratio of 1.63 as a chasing unit, the second-best of all the teams in the IPL.

They could have improved on that this year. Three of those seven defeats were looking a lot like wins. Two of them saw inspired performances from their young Indian batting core that had totals in excess of 200 well within their grasp. One run. Two runs. Ten. Eleven. A Super Over. So slim were the margins. Most royals are defined by excess. These guys were left forever reaching for parity. Reverse-swing played a big part in their undoing. No other team suffered as badly as RR did to the old ball's whims.

Mitchell Starc. Josh Hazlewood. Avesh Khan. Andre Russell. These were the impediments they ran into and couldn't overcome. When those bowlers were able to execute their plans to as close to perfection as possible, all RR's batters could do was hold on. Shimron Hetmyer found himself in the thick of this unforgiving cycle. He finished with a strike rate of 158.53, the seventh-lowest among 46 batters who were a frequent presence in the death overs (minimum 30 runs scored). RR set aside INR 11 crore to retain him. He had earned that payday. Between 2022 and 2024, his strike rate in the death overs was 200.

RR made another big call ahead of the auction. Samson had become a regular member of the India T20I side now. He was opening the batting and was having considerable success. With that in mind, perhaps, they let go of Jos Buttler. He is the quality of player who could have helped problem-solve many of the situations they found themselves in. He hit a hundred against KKR in 2024 that gets better with every viewing. He had Nos. 9 and 10 for company. RR were 46 runs away. There were only 19 balls left. Buttler scored every single run to bring victory.

Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag make up a solid batting group but they all play high-risk cricket. Asking them to do anything else will diminish their match-winning ability. RR could get the best out of them if they could bolster their middle order. Bringing in someone who can stay calm and reassess the situation when it starts to turn the wrong way. Their arrival becomes all the more essential because Vaibhav Suryavanshi has added to their top-order riches. The promising Indian batting talent RR have could do even more damage - which is startling to say when Jaiswal and Suryavanshi put on an opening stand of 76 where 74 runs came in boundaries - if they had a safety net.

There are options on the market. Sikandar Raza has done it before, although only briefly in the IPL. RR have previously tried and been burned by David Miller, Rovman Powell and Daryl Mitchell. But this time they don't have to do much heavy lifting. There's maybe a chance it clicks. Plus, it doesn't hurt that most of them offer a second skill.

Rahul Dravid finally won a senior World Cup going in on all-round talent. India's championship-winning side had four of them and the one that he fought for - Axar Patel - surprised South Africa with the bat. Only just back in charge of RR, Dravid kept putting out sides that seemed to lack in batting depth; they have had Wanindu Hasaranga bat as high as No. 5 and 6 even in this Impact Player era. They backed Sandeep Sharma over Jofra Archer for the Super Over against DC. Their fast bowlers ended the season with the highest combined average (42.95) and the second-highest economy rate (10.60). RR were knocked out of the playoffs race on May 1. At that point, they had only managed three powerplays where they picked up more than one wicket. They were constantly falling behind in games because of their bowling attack. It highlights the value of someone else that they let go. Trent Boult.

Franchises only get to keep six players whenever a mega auction comes along. Invariably, some of these hard calls come back to bite you. It's the nature of the IPL. It's how the tournament avoids monopoly. The onus then shifts to how well a team can paper over newly-formed cracks. RR need a dependable opening bowler and possibly a bankable Indian spinner so that they can stop conceding 200-plus totals. They gave up seven of those this season, equalling the IPL record set last year by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).

CSK were trending towards that mark on Tuesday too. At the end of the 17th over, ESPNcricinfo's Forecaster had them getting to 205. Akash Madhwal and Tushar Deshpande dragged it back, showing that success in a chase isn't all about the runs scored but the runs saved as well. It gave them the cushion to absorb the early loss of their top run-scorer and a mini collapse. There was a karmic kindness in Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel being the batters securing victory in a blaze of fours and sixes. That was the partnership that kept crumbling earlier in the season.

Samson knows some introspection needs to be done. But he was happy for the happy ending. Nearly everybody on the field wanted a picture with Suryavanshi. And this was a game with MS Dhoni in it.

"The game is changing, the way people are coming on, the way people are looking at powerplay, the batsmen, the quality of bowling, the quality of teams," Samson said. "I don't think there is much difference in the quality of line-up of the teams. The combinations are almost similar.

"But I think the margin of error between winning and losing is so less that it's very hard to find out why did we have a bad season actually. So I think, to be very honest, we need to sit back after the season, I think after a couple of weeks, we need to do a proper review and understand where we went wrong. Definitely we could have done much better. There are some mistakes we have done. We have to accept it and move on with it and come back with a better positive mindset next season."