New Delhi: Rajasthan Royals (RR) faltered in their second consecutive run chase of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 on Saturday, which calls for a deep inspection of what the team is actually lacking. It was a narrow margin of two runs by which Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) registered a victory, which left Riyan Parag devastated. The Guwahati boy was acting as the stand-in skipper, replacing the regular Sanju Samson, who was ruled out of the game due to an abdominal injury.
Playing at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, LSG set a target of 181 for the hosts. Although RR looked in good touch during the chase, they needed another 25 runs to win from the remaining 18 balls, having eight wickets still in hand. Yet, they ended up losing by two runs. Only three days ago, against Delhi Capitals (DC), RR required 23 runs off the last 12 balls with seven wickets standing, but the match resulted in a tie with RR losing in the Super Over.
Post-match, Parag said such losses were “hard to process” as Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel could manage just six runs out of the nine required off the final over. “Feeling a little hard to process the emotions, not sure what we did wrong. We were in the game till the 18th-19th over. I probably should have finished it in the 19th over, I blame myself. We just have to put one game together collectively for 40 overs; only then can we win,” Parag said at the presentation.
Should’ve chased it – Parag
Parag went on to say that his team did a good job with the ball, admitting that only the last over was unfortunate and that they should have stopped LSG 10-15 runs earlier.
“We did really well (with the ball), but the last over was unfortunate. I thought that we would stop them for 165-170. Sandy (Sandeep Sharma) bhai is trusted; he’s only had one bad game. Samad batted really well. We should’ve chased that down. Today was perfect, no complaints about the wicket. We were right in it, just a few balls can cost you an IPL game,” Parag stressed.
This was notably RR’s fourth straight defeat and has left them reeling at the eighth spot in the points table. They have only bagged two games out of eight played so far and head into their next game, which is an away fixture against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on April 24, after a good break of five days.
Stand-in RR skipper Riyan Parag was at loss for words after his side botched up a second run-chase in a row in the IPL 2025 on Sunday. LSG won the game by a narrow margin of two runs. Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
