By Prakash Nair 
Jaipur, May 1: It is that time of the evening in Jaipur when the heat has not quite decided to leave yet. The stands at Sawai Mansingh will fill up fast tonight. They always do. And somewhere in the middle of all that noise, RR and DC will try to play a cricket match that means very different things to each of them.
For Rajasthan, tonight is about pushing up the table and confirming what they already suspect about themselves. For Delhi, it is simpler and harder at the same time. They just need to stop the bleeding.
Rajasthan Have Been on a Roll
Nobody really saw this coming when the season started. Well, some people did. But the kind of cricket Rajasthan have played in patches this season has been genuinely exciting to watch, the sort that makes you put your phone down and actually pay attention.
They beat Punjab Kings last week. Punjab, who were sitting at the very top of the table. Six wins now, 12 points, and a dressing room that knows it has the beating of most sides in this competition when everything clicks.
Win tonight and they go second. Just behind the leaders. That is the kind of position that makes players walk a little taller in the morning.
A lot of that has to do with what is happening at the top of their batting order.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is 18. Eighteen. And he is already doing things that batters twice his age struggle to do. He faced Bumrah this season and did not blink. Faced Cummins, faced Hazlewood, and kept going after them like he had not been told who they were. Maybe that is the secret. Maybe somebody forgot to tell him to be scared. He already has 400 runs this tournament and he made a hundred right here at this ground recently. Tonight he plays at home, in front of people who chant his name. Somebody feel sorry for whoever opens the bowling for Delhi.
Yashasvi Jaiswal is beside him at the top and that is the part that makes opposition captains lose sleep. You cannot set a field for both of them. You stop one and the other hurts you. You try to stop both and the over goes for 14 anyway.
Down the order there is Donovan Ferreira who has quietly had a very good IPL. Shubham Dubey, Ravindra Jadeja, Dasun Shanaka. Captain Riyan Parag holding the middle together. This is a deep batting side and the bowlers know it.
Now, they are not flawless. Earlier this season against KKR, Rajasthan were 81 without loss and somehow contrived to finish at 155 for 9. A total collapse out of nowhere. Delhi will have watched that game back this week. Probably more than once. There is something in there worth targeting if you are an opposition bowling coach.
Delhi Have Had a Nightmare Run
Three losses in a row.
Seventh on the table.
Bowled out for 75 in their last game.
Seventy five. In a Twenty20 match. That is a number that makes experienced cricket people wince when they hear it. Against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, one of the better attacks in this competition, yes. But still. 75 all out is the kind of scoreline that follows a team around for weeks.
Axar Patel is a composed human being and he has not publicly panicked, which is the right approach. But you would have to imagine the conversations inside that dressing room have been fairly honest lately. When a team with this much talent, with names like Rahul and Miller and Kuldeep, ends up in seventh place and getting bowled out for 75, something has gone wrong somewhere and somebody has to say it out loud.
The bowling has been the bigger problem, if you are picking one. Delhi have taken just seven wickets in the powerplay across the whole season. The whole season. Rajasthan’s Jofra Archer has taken nine by himself. One man versus an entire team’s combined effort in the first six overs and Archer is winning that comparison easily.
That is not a small gap. That is a structural problem, and it has cost Delhi more than one game this year.
Their batting, outside of KL Rahul, has been all over the place too. Rahul has been brilliant. 358 runs, that 152 not out that people are still talking about. But you cannot build a batting plan around one man holding his nerve every single time. Sooner or later he has a bad day. On those days, Delhi need someone else to step up. So far in this campaign, that backup has mostly not shown up.
Starc Coming Back Is a Big Deal
The one thing keeping Delhi people going into tonight is that Mitchell Starc is fit.
He has been out since January. Shoulder injury. Has not bowled in a competitive match in over three months. But he has linked up with the squad, been in the nets, and is available to play tonight. And for a bowling attack that has been toothless with the new ball all season, his return feels significant even before he bowls a single delivery.
Starc with a fresh ball, swinging it, bringing it back in to a right-hander with that high action, is genuinely difficult to face. Even good players find him awkward. If he hits his rhythm quickly, the whole balance of this game shifts.
Here is the thing, though. He has been out for a long time. Fast bowlers coming back from injury do not always click in game one of their comeback. Even during KKR’s title win in 2024, when Starc was eventually brilliant, he took several games to really find himself. His first eight games that season, seven wickets at an economy of nearly 12. That is not the Starc anyone pays to watch.
So tonight is a question. Which Starc turns up? The one who is a little rusty and searching for rhythm, or the one who clicks immediately and makes life very hard for Sooryavanshi and Jaiswal inside the powerplay?
Kyle Jamieson will likely sit out to make room for him. Lungi Ngidi is still unavailable, stuck under the ICC’s concussion rules after a blow he took in the Punjab game last week.
The Ground Itself Helps Batters
Both captains are going to want to bowl first tonight if they win the toss. The pitch here at Sawai Mansingh has been producing big totals all season. The last three night matches on this specific strip, teams batting first put up 196, 217, and 206. All above 190. All on a ground where the outfield is fast, and the boundaries are not exactly far away once you get your eye in.
And chasing works here. Has been doing it for years. Going back to 2008, teams batting second at this ground have won something like 64 percent of IPL matches. That is not a small sample size anymore. That is a pattern.
Dew is not likely to be much of an issue tonight because Jaipur in early May is genuinely dry. But the pitch will stay flat throughout and scoring should be easier in the second half as the dew that does settle makes it harder to grip for the spinners.
Somewhere around 185 to 205 feels like a realistic first innings total. If it stays dry, maybe slightly lower. Either way, expect runs.
The Matchups That Decide Everything
Jofra Archer versus KL Rahul in the powerplay. That is the contest that could determine this whole match. Archer has been outrageous this season, taking wickets off his very first delivery four separate times. If he gets Rahul early, Delhi are chasing with their tail already between their legs and their most dangerous batter back in the dressing room.
Mitchell Starc versus Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. A 36-year-old Australian veteran in his comeback game against an 18-year-old Indian sensation playing at home. That is just good television regardless of what else happens.
Kuldeep Yadav in the middle overs if Delhi are bowling. Jaipur pitches do give a little to the wrist spinners as the evening wears on, and Kuldeep at his best is genuinely difficult to read even for batters who have faced him before. He could be the difference maker if Delhi bat well enough to set a target.
Likely Teams
Rajasthan: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag (c), Donovan Ferreira, Shubham Dubey, Dasun Shanaka, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Brijesh Sharma.
Delhi: KL Rahul (wk), Sahil Parakh, Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Vipraj Nigam, Axar Patel (c), Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Dushmantha Chameera.
Who Actually Wins Tonight
These two teams have played each other 30 times in IPL history and won 15 each. Cannot get more even than that on paper.
But this is not a paper game.
Rajasthan are in better form, better spirits, bowling better in the powerplay, and playing at home in front of a crowd that will be firmly on their side from the first ball to the last. The logic all points in one direction and it is pink.
Delhi can win. Of course they can. If Starc clicks immediately, if Rahul bats through to the end, if one other batter in that middle order finally has the game they have been promising for weeks. If those things happen, Delhi are capable of pulling this off.
But that is a lot of ifs for a team on a three-match losing streak.
Rajasthan are the pick tonight. Not because Delhi are bad, but because Rajasthan right now are just a little bit better at doing the things that win T20 cricket matches. Early wickets, aggressive starts, and depth all the way down the order.
The crowd will be loud, the pitch will be flat, and the cricket will be good. That much feels certain.
Everything else gets decided at 7:30.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
