By Prakash Nair 
Jaipur, May 9: Eight days ago, RR did something that is genuinely hard to explain. They scored 225 runs. On their own ground. And still lost.
Not by a close margin either. Delhi Capitals knocked it off with seven wickets in hand, like they were chasing something in a net session. KL Rahul barely broke a sweat. Pathum Nissanka was hitting fifties before most people had finished their dinner. By the halfway point of DC’s chase, the match was effectively over and RR were still standing in the field hoping something would change.
Nothing did.
Riyan Parag had scored 90. His captain’s knock meant nothing in the end. That kind of loss does not just hurt your net run rate. It messes with your head.
And now, eight days later, Gujarat Titans are walking into Jaipur with three wins on the bounce, a bowling attack in full cry, and absolutely no reason to be nervous.
This one has all the makings of a proper contest.
Same Points, But These Two Teams Are Going in Opposite Directions
Here is what the table says. Both RR and GT have won six games and lost four. Both are on twelve points. GT sit fifth, RR sit fourth, and the only thing separating them right now is net run rate.
On paper, identical. In reality, completely different stories.
GT have won their last three. RR have lost three of their last five. One team is peaking. The other is wobbling. You do not need a statistics degree to work out which is which.
A few weeks ago, Rajasthan looked like certainties for the playoffs. Not just likely, genuinely comfortable. They had gone four wins from four to start the season and the top four felt like it had their name written on it. Since then, the wheels have come loose. Not fallen off entirely, but loose enough to be worrying.
GT, on the other hand, were the side everyone had written off. At one point they had three wins from seven matches and looked like a team going through the motions. Then something clicked. Maybe the batting finally started clicking together. Maybe the bowlers found a rhythm. Whatever it was, GT over the last three weeks have looked like a side transformed.
What GT Did the Last Time They Played
May 3. Ahmedabad. Punjab Kings were sitting on top of the table when they walked out to bat. By the time Jason Holder was done with them, they were 35 for 3 after six overs and the match was more or less decided in that powerplay.
Holder took four wickets. Kagiso Rabada and Mohammed Siraj did the damage upfront. PBKS managed 163 for 9, which on most days in this tournament is a below-par score.
Even then, GT almost found a way to make it dramatic. They wobbled in the chase, lost wickets when they should not have, and came into the last over needing eleven runs with two wickets in hand. Washington Sundar hit the winning runs off the last ball.
Unglamorous. Stressful. But a win is a win. And right now, GT are collecting wins like they are going out of fashion.
RR’s Batting Can Hurt You. Their Bowling Is Another Matter
Let’s be fair to Rajasthan. They have some genuinely special batters.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is nineteen years old and is leading their run charts this season with 404 runs from ten games. Nineteen. In IPL 2026. He has played shots this season that batters twice his age would not attempt. Yashasvi Jaiswal is quietly sitting on 312 runs and has that ability to just take a game apart when he gets going. Parag, as mentioned, is back in form.
The problems tend to come lower down. Dhruv Jurel has had a frustrating season by his own standards. Three fifties, yes. But also four single-digit scores. Against Punjab Kings in a 223-run chase, he scored 16 off 20 balls and had to be bailed out by teammates. Against Delhi he batted at a strike rate of 140 during his 30-ball 42, which sounds okay until you realise it was on a flat pitch and they were chasing 226.
Jurel is a quality player. Nobody doubts that. But he has not quite found the right gear this season when RR have needed him most.
The bowling? Jofra Archer has been outstanding. Fifteen wickets, raw pace, troubling batters throughout. Ravi Bishnoi has been sharp too with eleven wickets in nine games. At home in Jaipur, on a surface that tends to grip for spinners through the middle overs, Bishnoi becomes even more of a weapon.
The problem is what happens when Archer finishes his spell. The support bowling has been hit and miss, and against a GT batting lineup that is batting with confidence right now, hit and miss simply will not do.
The GT Bowling Attack Is a Different Animal
Rabada is bowling fast. Not just fast for an IPL quick, genuinely fast. He has been clocking 145 kmph consistently and has picked up sixteen wickets in ten games. His powerplay numbers are frankly ridiculous. Eleven powerplay wickets. More than anyone else in the tournament at this stage.
Here is the interesting part though. A very large chunk of those wickets have come in Ahmedabad, where the pitches have suited his style perfectly. Jaipur is different. The surface here does not tend to offer the same kind of zip and carry for pace bowlers once you get out of the opening overs.
So there is a genuine tactical question tonight. If Rabada does not run through RR early, can GT’s middle-overs bowling hold the line? Rashid Khan will be central to that. He is one of the finest T20 spinners ever to play the game, and on a surface with some grip, he becomes very difficult to attack.
Siraj has been excellent at the death. Holder provides variety. On paper this is one of the more complete bowling attacks left in this tournament.
Jos Buttler Walks Into the Ground Where He Made His Name
There is a nice subplot to tonight’s game. Jos Buttler spent years with Rajasthan Royals. He hit some of the most extraordinary innings ever seen in the IPL while wearing pink. This ground knows him. The Jaipur crowd knows him.
Now he comes back wearing blue, batting for Gujarat Titans, with 335 runs already under his belt this season and a return to the kind of form that once made him the most feared white-ball batter in world cricket.
The crowd will have something to say about that. Buttler will probably enjoy every second of it.
The Toss Matters More Than Usual Tonight
Both teams would want to bowl first if you gave them the choice. Chasing has worked at this ground repeatedly this season. Scores above 220 have been chased down here twice already. The pitch tends to play easier as the match progresses and the dew settles in during the second innings.
Five of GT’s six wins this season have come while chasing. Gill will absolutely want to bowl first if he wins the toss.
For RR, Parag may actually prefer to bat first, post a big total and let Archer and Bishnoi defend it. That is a legitimate strategy. The problem is that RR’s bowling just gave away 226 last week, so the confidence in defending totals is not exactly sky-high right now.
Tonight Has Meaning Beyond the Cricket Too
Before we get entirely lost in the match itself, tonight’s game carries something more. This is RR’s third annual Pink Promise Match. The team will play in a special all-pink jersey designed by Samiksha Rameshwar Mundada, a nineteen-year-old whose design was chosen from over 8,500 entries submitted through the Royals HunaRR Manch contest.
For every six hit in tonight’s match, six homes in the Sambhar region of Rajasthan will be electrified using solar power. Over the previous two editions of this initiative, 780 homes across underserved communities have already been connected to electricity through the campaign.
In a tournament where everything revolves around run rates and playoff spots and fantasy league points, it is worth pausing on that for a moment. A cricket franchise using a match to actually change lives in its home state. That matters.
So What Actually Happens Tonight?
GT come in as slight favourites and honestly, the form makes that hard to argue with. Three wins in a row, bowling firing, top order in rhythm. They know how to win close games right now, which is a skill in itself.
But Jaipur is RR’s home. The crowd will be loud, pink and fully behind the Royals. Sooryavanshi and Jaiswal at the top can take apart any bowling attack on their day. Archer with the new ball in home conditions is a real weapon. And if Parag fires again like he did against Delhi, RR have the batting to post something very big.
The winner moves into the top three. The loser starts worrying. That is really what is at stake tonight.
Win this, and GT can genuinely start dreaming about a top-two finish. Win this, and RR can breathe again and remind everyone that their start to the season was not a fluke.
Lose, and everything gets harder.
Cricket rarely offers cleaner stakes than this. Jaipur tonight. Lights on at 7:30. Let’s see who wants it more.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
