AGENCY
NEW DELHI, Apr 28
On a pitch that looked similar to the “LSG game” to their captain Riyan Parag, Rajasthan Royals (RR) elected to field first against Gujarat Titans (GT) in IPL 2025. RR had dominated the chase of 181 against LSG but stumbled at the final step, losing by two runs. Parag said there had been dew on the eve of this match.
GT handed out a debut to Aghanistan allrounder Karim Janat. Sherfane Rutherford was missing for GT; he wasn’t in the list of substitutes either.
RR brought back mystery spinner Maheesh Theekshana to their side in accordance with the low bounce expected in Jaipur. He replaced swing bowler Fazalhar Farooqi. Tushar Deshpande, who went for 36 in two overs in the last game, was left out for Yudhvir Singh. RR were playing for survival in the tournament, needing to win all their remaining five games to give themselves half a chance of qualifying for the playoffs. GT were just two points behind the table toppers Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), but they had two games in hand.
GT won the first match between these two teams comfortably, starting for RR a five-match losing streak. Three of those were games that RR bossed for 35 overs or so before failing to close them out.
Gujarat Titans: 1 B Sai Sudharsan, 2 Shubman Gill (capt.), 3 Jos Buttler (wk), 4 Washington Sundar, 5 M Shahrukh Khan, 6 Rahul Tewatia, 7 Karim Janat, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 R Sai Kishore, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Prasidh Krishna
Possible Impact Players: Ishant Sharma, Anuj Rawat, Mahipal Lomror, Arshad Khan
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Vaibhav Suryavanshi, 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Riyan Parag (capt.), 5 Dhruv Jurel, 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Sandeep Sharma, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Maheesh Theekshana, 11 Yudhvir Singh Possible Impact Players: Shubham Dubey, Tushar Deshpande, Kumar Kartikeya, Akash Madhwal, Kunal Singh Rathore
