Rajasthan Royals (RR) have claimed their first victory of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season. RR have defeated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by 6 runs at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati.
RR Player Rating vs CSK
Nitish Rana, 10/10: After a horrid run across formats in the last 12 months, Nitish has played his best IPL knock. His sensational innings of 81 (36) was why RR got to 182. All the other batters combined scored 91 runs from 84 balls. That’s how good Nitish was.
Sanju Samson, 3/10: Struggles continue. Samson continues to play sluggish knocks. This time the RR captain, who’s playing as an impact sub due to a finger injury, scored 20 (16). While pacers got him the last two times, against CSK it was Noor Ahmad.
Riyan Parag, 7.5/10: Played second fiddle to Nitish for a few overs. RR would have liked for him to continue, but given how most batters barring Nitish struggled, Parag’s 37 (28) was important for Rajasthan.
Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2/10: Another unimpressive performance from the opener, 4 (3). Started with a boundary but chipped an innocuous ball from Khaleel Ahmed to Ravichandran Ashwin at mid-off. The only good thing is that he didn’t waste balls.
Sandeep Sharma, 8.5/10: After leaking 15 runs in his first over, Sandeep gave away just 27 runs in his next three overs and also got the wicket of MS Dhoni. Two of these came in the death, and he held his nerve to bowl the final over as CSK needed 20 runs to win.
Wanindu Hasaranga, 10/10: The promotion up the order failed again, 4 (5). But Hasaranga made up for it with the ball, 35/4. After Jofra Archer got Rachin Ravindra, the leg spinner got the next four CSK wickets. These scalps were Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rahul Tripathi, Shivam Dube and Vijay Shankar.
Jofra Archer, 10/10: Bowled three overs in the powerplay, one of which was a maiden. Archer went for just 13 runs and also got the wicket of Rachin in the first over of the match. He froze the scoring rate, due to which pressure never came off.
Dhruv Jurel, 2/10: A poor innings from the wicketkeeper. Scored just 3 (7), and the fact that he got out moments after Nitish Rana departed wasn’t great for RR.
Shimron Hetmyer, 3/10: The finisher didn’t finish the match. He scored 19 (16). Hetmyer could have taken RR past 200, but that wasn’t the case.
Maheesh Theekshana, 7.5/10: Didn’t get a wicket but was economical. He bowled the 18th over and conceded just 6 runs. Wickets win you matches, but dry overs build the pressure that gets you wickets.
Tushar Despande, 4/10: Didn’t take a wicket and went for 45 runs. This included a 19-run penultimate over.
Kumar Kartikeya, 3/10: Came in as the impact sub, bowled 1 over and gave 10 runs. Bowled bad balls, was lucky to get hit for just 2 boundaries.
