Captain Sanju Samson had a much more relieved look after the Rajasthan Royals’ crucial win over Lucknow Super Giants at the Brabourne Stadium on Sunday.

“This win was satisfying. The atmosphere within the group is chilled out and nice, but it’s not easy to maintain it that way when there are losses, though we have bounced back well,” Samson said at the post-match presentation.

The Royals won a good toss first up and batted first, which has been their mode of operation on most occasions. “Batting first suits our approach. We want to bat positively and the bowling unit too does its best to deliver.

“That’s what happened in this game,” Samson said, adding: “The intensity on the field was good.

“Also, we need to make a special mention of (Jimmy) Neesham who brought in a lot of energy.”

Neesham played in place of Shimron Hetmyer, who’s yet to join after having left for the birth of his first child.

Talking about utilising Ravichandran Ashwin in different phases of Lucknow’s run chase, Samson said: “The bonus of having quality spinners is that you can use them anywhere, and they get the job done in most cases.”

To talk about Lucknow, the dressing down from mentor Gautam Gambhir after their embarrassing showing in the previous game doesn’t seem to have worked. On Sunday, their ground fielding too was below-par while a catch was also dropped when Yashasvi Jaiswal mishit early in the Royals’ innings.

All these before Trent Boult again made life difficult for the Lucknow top order with the moving ball.

Captain KL Rahul, too, acknowledged that. “There was seam movement earlier and they (Royals bowlers) bowled well.

“Losing two wickets (within the third over) was bad, and we’ve lost games because of that before. So we need to find ways to get a good start when the ball is moving,” Rahul noted.

“We’ve got power in our batting line-up, so it’s just about playing smart when the opposition bowlers are bowling a good spell,” he added.