New Delhi: Pacers Akash Madhwal and Yudhvir Singh Charak picked three-fers each, while young Vaibhav Suryavanshi top-scored with a delightful 57 as Rajasthan Royals signed off from IPL 2025 on a high via a clinical six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
The result also means that CSK will now finish IPL 2025 at the bottom of the points table, unless they beat table-toppers Gujarat Titans by a big margin on Sunday. On a pitch which looked good for batting Madhwal and Charak led an excellent bowling performance from RR to keep CSK to 187/8 which looked a bit short of a winning score, despite Ayush Mhatre and Dewald Brevis hitting 40s each.
While Yudhvir, coming in for Fazalhaq Farooqi, rocked in the power-play to pick 3-47, Madhwal nailed yorkers at will and used some reverse swing at the back end to end with 3-29. In the chase, 14-year-old wonderkid Suryavanshi delighted everyone with his four boundaries and as many sixes.
He also found support from captain Sanju Samson making 42 while Dhruv Jurel hit a lovely 31 not out off 12 balls to help RR complete the chase with 17 balls to spare, as RR buried their ghosts of previous faltering run-chases in the season.
The majorly yellow jersey wearing and CSK supporting crowd were dejected when Yudhvir had Devon Conway chipping to mid-off, before forcing Urvil Patel to chip to a back-pedalling Kwena Maphaka at mid-on. Teenage Mhatre thrilled everyone by pulling and lofting Tushar Deshpande for a brace of boundaries, before Ravichandran Ashwin glanced and then flicked Yudhvir beautifully off the front foot for four and six respectively.
Mhatre capitalised on the free hit by backing away to pull Yudhvir for six, before slashing him through cover for four, as 24 runs came off fourth over. The introduction of Maphaka didn’t change matters as Mhatre slashed and lofted him for a brace of boundaries. He took a liking to Deshpande’s pace by swiping, pulling and upper-cutting him for a hat-trick of fours.
But in a bid to hit Deshpande down the ground, Mhatre didn’t time the loft and was caught by diving long-on, as his 56-run stand with Ashwin came to an end. CSK again lost wickets in quick succession as Ashwin lofted to deep mid-wicket off Wanindu Hasaranga, while Ravindra Jadeja flicked uppishly to short mid-wicket and become Yudhvir’s third scalp.
RR eventually dried the runs towards Brevis, and that resulted in him losing his off-stump to Madhwal. The pacer was the key reason why RR squeezed the run flow from 18th over – resulting in Dube and Dhoni falling to him in the final over – as 17 runs came off the last three overs.
