Rajasthan Royals’ stand-in captain Riyan Parag admitted it was “hard to process the emotions” after his side slumped to their fourth consecutive loss in IPL 2025, going down to Lucknow Super Giants at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur on Saturday.
Despite a bright start to their chase of 181, the Royals fell short by just two runs, finishing at 178/5 in 20 overs. The result has severely dented their chances of qualifying for the playoffs this season.
The Royals began strongly, with Yashasvi Jaiswal and 14-year-old debutant Vaibhav Suryavanshi putting together an 85-run opening stand. Suryavanshi made a memorable IPL debut, hitting the very first ball of his career for a six and going on to score 34 off 20 balls, including two fours and three sixes. Jaiswal anchored the innings with a fluent 74 off 52 deliveries, and at one point, RR looked to be cruising towards victory.
“Feeling a little hard to process the emotions, not sure what we did wrong. We were in the game till the 18-19th 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 while speaking to broadcasters after the match.
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Earlier, the Royals’ bowlers had done well to keep LSG’s key batters in check. Mitchell Marsh was dismissed for 4 and Nicholas Pooran managed only 11. However, half-centuries from Aiden Markram (66) and Ayush Badoni (50) helped Lucknow recover from 54/3 to 130/3.
The momentum shifted dramatically in the final over when Abdul Samad smashed four sixes off Sandeep Sharma, giving LSG a competitive total to defend. “We did really well (with the ball), the last over was unfortunate, 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,” Parag said, backing the senior pacer.
“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,” he added. With their latest defeat, RR now face an uphill task in the final stretch of the league phase, needing to regroup quickly if they hope to stay in the top-four race.
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