The Rajasthan Royals (RR) edged past the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in a nail-biting encounter by 6 runs at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati on Sunday, marking their first victory of the season. CSK had their second consecutive defeat in IPL 2025.
Batting first, Rajasthan set a competitive total of 182, thanks to Rana , who played a crucial inning under pressure. With a perfect set of strategic hitting and clever running between the wickets, RR gave a challenging score that tested the chasing CSK side.
In a surprising twist for the Royals, Riyan Parag was shifted down the order to make way for Nitish Rana at No. 3,a decision backed by coach Dravid ahead of their clash in hopes of leveraging a favourable match-up against R Ashwin. Rana has an impressive record against R Ashwin with 108 runs at 58 balls without being dismissed. He scored 27 off just 13 balls, and took the attack to Ashwin, slamming sixes and boundaries before being stumped on 81 runs. The explosive performance of Nitish Rana, who was also awarded as the Player of the Match for his outstanding innings of 81 runs off just 36 balls, which offset low scores for Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sanju Samson.
Chennai Super Kings, led by MS Dhoni, found themselves in a challenging situation while chasing 183. CSK’s innings started slowly, with their seasoned batsmen struggling to find a rhythm against the RR bowling. RR bowlers delivered impressive performances, especially their wrist spinner Hasaranaga, who spun a web around the CSK batsmen. Wicket after wicket fell, and CSK struggled to find its way, resulting in them lagging behind the required run rate. In spite of fighting hard they got restricted to just 176 runs and fell short of 6 runs of the target. The Royals celebrated their hard-earned victory, marking their first points of the season, while the CSK faced disappointment as they pondered what went wrong.
After the game Rana said,” I was trying to utilise the new ball because the powerplay is important. The ball starts stopping and spinning after it gets old. Wanted to maximize the powerplay and play the field, rather than playing the pitch or bowler”. Riyan Parag added when asked how he feels after his first win as a captain,” Took a lot of time, just two games, but felt really long. We lost a couple of wickets quickly, but we bowled really well ”.
SCORECARD: RR vs CSK, 30th March, Guwahati, IPL 2025
RAJASTHAN ROYALS 182/9
- Nitish Rana 81 (36)
- Riyan Parag 37 (28)
- Sanju Samson 20 (16)
- Matheesha Pathirana 2/28 (4)
- Noor Ahmad 2/28 (4)
- Khaleel Ahmad 2/38 (4)
CHENNAI SUPER KINGS 176/6
- Ruturaj Gaikwad 63 (44)
- Ravindra Jadeja 32 (22)
- Rahul Tripathi 23 (19)
- Wanindu Hasaranga 4/35 (4)
- Jofra Archer 1/13 (3)
- Sandeep Sharma 1/42 (4)
