Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) beat Rajasthan Royals (RR) by 11 runs in the 42nd match of the Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL 2025) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on April 24.
Chasing 206 runs, Rajasthan Royals were off to a flyer. The innings began with a six with Yashasvi Jaiswal (49 runs off 19 balls) wasting no time in going about his business against Bhuvneshwar Kumar. The southpaw then smashed three boundaries, including a six, in the next over off Yash Dayal.
14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi (16 runs off 12 balls), who was playing his second IPL game, also tonked a six off Bhuvneshwar as the carnage ensued from both ends. Jaiswal took on Josh Hazlewood in the fourth over, hitting three consecutive boundaries, giving no reprieve to RCB’s bowlers.
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Bhuvneshwar took his revenge in the fifth over as he castled Suryavanshi. But Jaiswal was not in the mood to slow down. He carried on with the onslaught on Hazlewood, smacking two fours and a six. However, the Aussie did not bog down from the fight and ultimately dismissed the RR opener.
Riyan Parag (22 runs off 10 balls) had luck going in his favour, scoring boundaries on quite a few edges. He even clubbed two sixes off Romario Shepherd and Suyash Sharma. But the introduction of Krunal Pandya in the 10th over led to his undoing as the left-arm spinner deceived him. Parag slogged the ball high in the air and got caught by Jitesh Sharma.
At the 10-over mark, RR had scored 113 runs for the loss of three wickets and seemed to be cruising towards an easy win.
However, Pandya and Suyash spun a web and stopped the flow of runs. Only 19 runs came off overs 11 to 13. This created the pressure on the Royals and resulted in Nitish Rana’s (28 runs off 22 balls) dismissal. Rana played a sweep off Pandya only to give a catch to Bhuvneshwar at the short fine-leg region.
Dhruv Jurel (47 runs off 34 balls), who was batting on 18 runs off 23 balls at one stage, broke the shackles in the last ball of the 15th over, nailing a huge maximum off Suyash. This gave him enough confidence to take on Pandya, who was also hit for a six by Jurel in the 16th.
Just when RR had started to dominate again, Hazlewood struck. He sent Shimron Hetmyer (11 runs off 8 balls) back to the dressing room as the match hung in balance.
After Shubham Dubey (12 runs off 7 balls) closed the 17th over with a four, RR needed 40 runs off 18 deliveries. Jurel and Dubey brought the equation down to 18 runs off 12 deliveries. Bhuvneshwar leaked 22 runs in the 18th over and got taken apart by RR's batters. While Jurel smacked two fours and a six in the over, Dubey also contributed with a maximum.
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This looked to have sealed the deal for RR. But in another twist, Hazlewood gave away just one run in the 19th over and took the wickets of Jurel and Jofra Archer (0 run off 1 ball).
With 17 runs required off six balls, Rajasthan's hopes hinged on Dubey, who perished on the first ball of the over bowled by Dayal to end the remaining chances of the Royals of winning this game. Wanindu Hasaranga (1 run off 3 balls) wanted to retain the strike and got run-out.
RR's innings eventually ended at 194 runs for the loss of nine wickets as RCB emerged victorious by 11 runs.
With this win, RCB moved to third place on the IPL 2025 points table, while RR continued to languish at the eighth spot.
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