Rajasthan Royals skipper Steve Smith believed that his team’s inability to capitalise on the good start provided by openers Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes hindered their chances against Delhi Capitals on Wednesday.

Delhi continued on their dominating run in the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as they defeated Rajasthan Royals by 13 run at the Dubai International Stadium.

“We got off to a good start with Jos and Stokesy, then we lost a couple wickets and got another partnership between Stokesy and Sanju (Samson), then again lost wickets in clumps. On slow wickets, it is hard to make up too many runs at the backend,” said Smith after the match.

Stokes and Buttler smashed 37 runs within the first four overs after which Sanju Samson put up 46 with the England all-rounder for the third wicket. The highest partnership for RR after that was 25 runs for the sixth wicket between Robin Uthappa and Rahul Tewatia.

“We needed to take it a bit deeper from some of our batters and we were not able to do that. We thought we bowled well at the backend and restricted them to 160-odd, which was probably around par on this wicket. And the opening partnership got us ahead in the game but we couldn’t extend those partnerships… the boys were getting in and getting out, not going on to make 50 or 60,” Smith said.

It was Delhi’s sixth win from eight matches and with 12 points now, Shreyas Iyer’s men have regained the top spot in the points table. They dethroned Mumbai Indians. Rajasthan, meanwhile, stand seventh with six points from eight matches.

“We are not in the greatest position at the moment, so we need to move on from this and hopefully come back with a big game in three days’ time,” said Smith.

Opting to bat first, Delhi Capitals put on board a commendable total of 161/7 courtesy of a half-centuries by Shikhar Dhawan (57) and skipper Shreyas Iyer (53).

Defending the total, Delhi bowler showed their usual brilliance with an a-round display where each of them contributed to the team’s cause.

Anrich Nortje (2/33) and Tushar Deshpande (2/37) were the pick of the bowlers, while Kagiso Rabada (1/28), Ravichandran Ashwin (1/17) and Axar Patel (1/32) were also on the money as they restricted Rajasthan to 148/8.