Kumar Sangakkara insisted that Rajasthan Royals are "still a very high-quality side" after Gujarat Titans inflicted their fourth defeat in five games on Friday night, but not before describing their performance as "extremely poor" and "embarrassing".
Royals slipped from 47 for 1 after five overs to 118 all out, the second-lowest total of IPL 2023, on a blameless pitch at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, with Titans' Afghan wristspinners Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmad returning 5 for 39 between them.
Sangakkara, Royals' director of cricket and head coach, bemoaned his batters' reluctance to attack the spinners, and their failure to kick on after getting set. "It is embarrassing for anyone when you don't play well," he said.
"We were very, very poor in terms of capitalising on the starts we got. We were showing intent for a while, but we were a little bit reckless, and then we had very, very little intent against the two spinners. Rashid bowled brilliantly, I thought Noor bowled really well as well, but that's the time the batters need to step up and show more and more intent.
"Even a defence in T20 cricket has to have the intent of wanting to score. You work down the sequence of 6, 4, 3, 2, 1; or, if you're under pressure, you go 4, 3, 2, 1. But you are always looking for opportunities to score, and at the minimum, getting off strike.
"And once that intent is shown, it doesn't matter how good a bowler you are, you are always thinking that you can't give the batter anything loose because you're going to get put away. So that's one area that we've got to really look at."
Sangakkara said that the reverse fixture in Ahmedabad, where Noor took 1 for 29 in 2.2 overs on his IPL debut, demonstrated the importance of showing attacking intent. "The young man showed a lot of character," he said. "He didn't have the greatest in terms of his first outing against us, but since then he has bowled exceptionally well.
"Again, it is just how you arrange your game against… so-called mystery spinners. And if you show intent, you see that Noor, with a lack of experience, can bowl balls that are hittable but you've got to get that rhythm going off rotation of strike, putting the bad balls away and constantly reversing pressure on the bowler.
"You can't sit and wait in T20 cricket and let the bowlers bowl to us. But having said that, both Rashid and Noor bowled exceptionally well and not just that - their pace-bowling quartet came back into the game really well after not having the best of starts. So I think it's all credit to Gujarat, the way they played, and we played a very poor game."
Two of Royals' top performers over the last season-and-a-half - Jos Buttler and Shimron Hetmyer - have struggled badly of late, with Buttler making 93 runs in his last six innings and Hetmyer recording five consecutive single-figure scores.
"For Jos, he had a great run last season," Sangakkara said. "He started off really well and all batters go through a cold streak and a hot streak. It doesn't reduce the quality of the player and over a longer period of time, you find with highly-skilled players that it all equalises.
"It's the same with Hetmyer. He's been going through a rough patch after having started well again. But then that's what a team is for. Other batters have to step up the slack and keep going and when they do fire it just adds to the impetus and the totals that we score. That's just the nature of T20 cricket and the conversations have been very good. They've been fantastic in the team environment and I know that they're trying their best to do as well as they can."
Royals have a short turnaround before their next game, at home to a struggling Sunrisers Hyderabad on Sunday night, and with four of the top six sides in action before then, they will be desperate to get their season back on track with a victory.
"Games like this, most sides have pretty bad games," Sangakkara said. "Unfortunately, we've had one now, pretty late in the tournament. We're still a very high-quality side, playing some very good cricket if you take this one out of the equation.
"But we've got to accept the fact that we were extremely poor today. And that's the first step. You realise it, accept it, and then try to come up with the solutions to what the problems are."