Josh Hazlewood. | (Image Credits: X)
Rajasthan Royals suffered yet another meltdown as the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) sparked a stunning comeback to register their first home win of IPL 2025. Dhruv Jurel had put the Royals in the box seat to win the match but his wicket and Josh Hazlewood’s final over changed the complexion of the match, enabling the home side to defend 205 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Chasing a stiff 206, Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Yashasvi Jaiswal put on a 52-run stand before Bhuvneshwar Kumar cleaned up the former as he tried to go for one shot too many. Hazlewood got the better of Jaiswal for 49 off 19 balls as the left-hander was cutting loose to put the Royal Challengers on the sword. Thereafter Krunal Pandya struck in his first ball of the innings to remove Riyan Parag, who had got off to an electrifying start.
Nitish Rana had also got off to a promising start but Bengaluru applied the squeeze in the middle overs and Pandya struck again, taking his second wicket of the innings. Jurel, who was 18 off 23 balls, shifted the momentum back for the Royals when Bhuvneshwar came on for his final over, yielding 22 runs for the tourists. With 18 required off the final two overs, Hazlewood sparked a comeback by dismissing Jurel (47) and Jofra Archer (0) in back-to-back deliveries.
With Hazlewood leaving Yash Dayal 16 to defend in the final over, the left-arm seamer did it expertly, with Bengaluru winning by 11 runs eventually. Hazlewood finished with stunning figures of 4-0-33-4.
Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal played a central part in propelling RCB to 205/5
With Riyan Parag putting the home side into bat, it proved to be the first instance in IPL 2025 that RCB hadn’t lost a wicket in the powerplay. Although Phil Salt couldn’t quite make use of the lifeline given by the Royals’ captain early in his innings.
However, fifties from Virat Kohli (70) and Devdutt Padikkal (50) and the partnership of 95 between them proved to be the bedrock of the match-winning total.
The likes of Jitesh Sharma (20*) and Tim David (23*) provided the flourish to help RCB get past 200. With the Royals now losing five consecutive matches and seven overall, they are likely virtually eliminated from the playoff race.
