Rajasthan Royals have lost seven of their nine matches this season
Rajasthan Royals have bottled a chase that should have been an easy win – not just once but three matches in a row in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.
They seemed to be cruising and were in a strong position to inflict a third defeat of the season on Delhi Capitals, but failed to score only eight of the nine runs required in the final over. They ended up losing the match in the Super Over.
Then against Lucknow Super Giants, they yet again needed nine runs in the final over but fell short by two runs as Avesh Khan pulled off a stunning win at the Ekana Stadium.
On Thursday against a Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) side that has lost all three home games in IPL 2025, they needed to score 18 off the last two overs. But they lost two wickets and scored a solitary run in Josh Hazlewood’s penultimate over and suffered 11-run defeat.
The worrying pattern not only made it five losses in a row, but mathematically shut the door on their play-offs chances.
Key pacer Sandeep Sharma pointed out that there were several factors pulling the team down, but specified that the batters have failed to win crucial moments. The 31-year-old highlighted the fact that it is a similar batting unit that propelled the team to the play-offs last season.
“We are unable to control the crucial moments in the games. Whenever we were supposed to accelerate, we have lost too many wickets. If you look at our last year’s performances, we were able to do these things with ease. It was this same Riyan Parag, same Yashasvi Jaiswal, same Dhruv Jurel who were winning these moments,” Sandeep said in the post-match press conference.
On a Chinnaswamy pitch which RCB captain Rajat Patidar called ‘two-faced’, RR fielded four pacers and a frontline spinner. Lead pacer Jofra Archer was getting the ball spit off the surface and got mixed results in the match.
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While some of his back of the length deliveries spit off the surface only to run away for boundaries, some of them troubled the batters and even earned him the prized wicket of Virat Kohli (70 off 42 balls). The England speedster finished with 1-33 from his four overs and was the pick of the RR bowlers. Hazlewood, meanwhile, bowled the most crucial over of the match to win it for RCB.
“If you look at the Jaipur pitch, there the ball doesn’t bounce much and it slides if you try to hit the deck hard. In Bengaluru, usually we don’t see this type of pitch. But this year, we are seeing that the ball is flying when we hit back of the length. On each side, there was one pacer who had the height advantage,” Sharma said about the surface.
When asked if RR were missing their skipper Sanju Samson who has been ruled out for undetermined amount of time due to a side tear, Sharma replied,
“Surely, because he is an experienced player and our captain and a very smart batsman. Unfortunately, he was out of the first three matches and now he has a side injury. These things are definitely affecting us as a batting unit. But I don’t think its affecting our bowling. We are all experienced bowlers here and we make the bowling plans ourselves,” Sharma said.
RR will next face Gujarat Titans on Monday at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.
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