Mumbai: Steve Smith, who made a superb half century for Rajasthan Royals in an unsuccessful run-chase against SunRisers Hyderabad, rued that his team's bowlers and fielders gave away a lot many runs in the initial part of the encounter that cost them the match.
"Obviously, there were a pretty good striking in the last couple of overs from Chris Morris to help us come close. But we let them get away too much initially, gave too many loose balls to some very good players and they hurt us early on. Our fielding is a little bit of concern as well," said Smith, after his team lost the high-scoring game by seven runs.
Put into bat, SRH rode on half-centuries from opener Shikhar Dhawan (54) and Eoin Morgan (63) to raise a tall score of 201 for 4 to which Royals replied with 194 for 7 after needing 40 in the last two overs.
Morris carted Praveen Kumar for three sixes off the first three balls of the penultimate over of the game before Bhuvaneshwar Kumar stopped the victory charge in the last over.
A victory today would have nailed a play-off berth for Royals, who have two more games left after today's game and Smith said his team could take a few positives into their next game against Chennai Super Kings on May 10 at the Chidambaram Stadium.
"Obviously, it would have been nice to win with two more games to go. We got a few positives to take away from this game. We almost chased down 200 which was a pretty good effort," he said.
He was not sure why the team chose to field first on winning the toss.
"I am not too sure, will have to ask (captain) Shane (Watson). We have chased well in a few games but the fact is we gave away too many runs," he said. He also praised the track used for the game.
"It was a very good wicket. We came close to scoring 200 and they scored in excess," he concluded.
