Guwahati (Assam) [India], April 6 : Ahead of his side's Indian Premier League (IPL) clash against the Mumbai Indians (MI), the Rajasthan Royals (RR) performance coach Siddhartha Lahiri spoke on the advantage his team gets through their high-performance centre, helping particularly rising batting superstar Vaibhav Suryavanshi and pacer Tushar Deshpande in delivering some of their best performances in a recent while.
RR will be aiming to make a hat-trick of wins when they meet five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) at Guwahati on Tuesday. On the other hand, MI will be aiming to bounce back after a loss to the Delhi Capitals (DC). During this IPL season, Suryavanshi has continued from where he left off in the previous season, and Deshpande translated his brilliant domestic form into a brilliant defence of 11 runs in the final over, leaving the Gujarat Titans (GT) six runs short.
Speaking about the advantage that the high-performance centre gives to RR players, he said that players are able to get facilities, net bowlers and facilities throughout the year in a busy cricketing calendar.
"I think the huge advantage which we have is our high-performance centre. Players at different times, as you know, with their calendars, playing at different times, it is not always easy for them to get somewhere and get that practice. For us, that is a huge advantage. We want the players to work and improve on, that which can easily get facilitated in that facility."
"Vaibhav spends a lot of time in our high-performance centre. So, we have different types of wickets. We have hundreds and hundreds of net bowlers, speeders. So, the practice which he gets, he would not get anywhere else. You speak about Deshpande, I think there is a sync for us between our analytics team and our coaching team, where the work is going on all through the year."
"And we always bring that player in that confidence. So, when it comes to execution, if Deshpande wants to go and practice his yorkers and he just needs a pitch and no one, he gets that. So, I think we have a cutting edge of that, and we have been doing that really well over the last 8 to 10 months after the last idea," he concluded.
So far in two innings this season, Suryavanshi has scored 83 runs at an average of 41.50 and a strike rate of 237.14, with a 17-ball 52 against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as his best score. He has carried the form from the U19 World Cup-winning campaign this year, scoring 444 runs in seven innings at an average of 62.71 and a strike rate of 169.50, including a century and three fifties.
Also, Deshpande is coming into the tournament after a 38-wicket season for Mumbai across Ranji Trophy, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy (VHT) competitions, including 25 wickets in eight matches at an average of above 25 in Ranji, ending up as Mumbai's second-highest wicket-taker in the competition. His sole IPL appearance has been a fine three-over spell for RR, conceding just 24 runs and getting a wicket against GT.
Squads:

Rajasthan Royals Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel(w), Riyan Parag(c), Shimron Hetmyer, Donovan Ferreira, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Tushar Deshpande, Sandeep Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Brijesh Sharma, Ravi Singh, Shubham Dubey, Adam Milne, Dasun Shanaka, Kuldeep Sen, Sushant Mishra, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Kwena Maphaka, Vignesh Puthur, Aman Rao Perala

Mumbai Indians Squad: Ryan Rickelton(w), Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Sherfane Rutherford, Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Corbin Bosch, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mayank Markande, Trent Boult, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Ashwani Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Quinton de Kock, Will Jacks, Mayank Rawat, Raghu Sharma, Atharva Ankolekar, AM Ghazanfar, Danish Malewar, Mohammed Salahuddin Izhar.