By Prakash Nair 
Guwahati, April 7: Rain for three hours. Hailstones on the outfield. A crowd that refused to go home. And then, when cricket finally started at 10 PM, Rajasthan Royals proceeded to absolutely take Mumbai Indians apart in 22 overs of actual play.
RR won by 27 runs. Three games, three wins. Nobody has beaten them yet this season. Nobody has come close.
The First Ball Tells You Everything
Let’s start with the moment everyone will be talking about at school, at work, at chai tapris across the country tomorrow morning.
Jasprit Bumrah ran in to bowl. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, fifteen years old, stood at the crease. This was their first-ever meeting in professional cricket. All day long, people had been asking what happens when the teenager faces the best bowler in the world for the first time.
Sooryavanshi hit the first ball for six.
Not a lucky shot. Not an edge over the keeper. A full, clean, proper six. Bumrah’s very first delivery to the kid went over the rope. The crowd, who had already been sitting in the rain for three hours, went completely mad.
And then he did it again. Same over. Another six off Bumrah.
Two sixes. First-ever meeting. Fifteen years old. This kid is not normal.
Before Bumrah Even Came On
The thing is, by the time Bumrah ran in, the game was already tilting badly in RR’s favour.
Deepak Chahar bowled the first over. Yashasvi Jaiswal was on strike. Chahar is a decent bowler. He has had good IPL seasons before. Tonight, Jaiswal hit him for 22 runs in six balls. The first over of the entire match. Twenty-two runs.
At that point, the MI fielders must have looked at each other and wondered what was coming next.
What came next was Sooryavanshi and those two sixes off Bumrah. The powerplay finished with RR on 59 runs without losing a single wicket. That is nearly a run every ball against the two best bowlers MI have.
Sooryavanshi’s Innings Explained
Sooryavanshi made 39 runs off 14 balls before getting out.
Now if you do not watch much cricket, here is what that means in plain terms. A full 11-over match has 66 balls per team. This boy faced 14 of them and scored 39 runs. He scored more in 14 balls than most batters manage in 30.
He and Jaiswal put on 80 runs together in just five overs as an opening partnership. In an 11-over game, that is not just a good start. That is the match won before the halfway point.
When he eventually got out, the RR score was already at a point where the MI were going to need something extraordinary to win.
Jaiswal Just Would Not Stop
Here is what Yashasvi Jaiswal did tonight. He opened the batting. He was there from ball one. He watched Sooryavanshi go. He watched Dhruv Jurel come and go. He watched Riyan Parag come in, smash 20 off nine balls, and leave. Through all of it, Jaiswal stayed right there at the crease and kept scoring.
He finished the innings unbeaten. Seventy-seven runs off 32 balls. Not out.
To give you a sense of how ridiculous that is in context, the whole team scored 150 runs. Jaiswal scored 77 of them. He was not even dismissed. He was just there the whole time, hitting the ball into gaps and over fielders and occasionally into the stands.
Shardul Thakur had the last over and got hit for 18 runs, some of that coming off wide deliveries. RR ended at 150 for 3 in their 11 overs.
So now MI needed 151 runs from their 66 balls. At 10 something PM. After already spending the whole evening getting rained on.
What Happened To The Mumbai Indians In Their Chase
It went wrong very quickly.
Jofra Archer bowled the first over. Ryan Rickelton hit a six, looked dangerous for a moment, and then got out on the last ball of the over. MI were 10 for 1.
Then Sandeep Sharma bowled to Rohit Sharma. Now Rohit is one of the greatest T20 batters ever. He has won five IPL titles. He knows Sandeep well. Sandeep knows him better, apparently. He has dismissed Rohit six times in T20 cricket now, and tonight was no different. He brought the keeper up close to the stumps, got Rohit to go for the sweep shot, hit him on the pad with a ball aimed straight at the stumps, and the umpire had absolutely no hesitation. Rohit LBW. Walking back to the pavilion for a low score. MI in real trouble.
Suryakumar Yadav came in. He is normally someone who can rescue any situation. Tonight, Nandre Burger had him out cheaply. 20 for 2 became 41 for 4 when Ravi Bishnoi came on as RR’s impact substitute and got both Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma in the same over.
Think about that. The MI captain and Tilak Varma, one of the best young batters in the country, were both dismissed by a legspinner in the same over. The chase was done right there at 41 for 4, needing over 13 runs every single over.
Naman Dhir made 25 runs and showed some fight. Sherfane Rutherford also made 25 coming in as a substitute. Credit to both of them for not just giving up. But you cannot chase 151 in 11 overs when you are 41 for 4 and your best four batters are already back in the dressing room.
MI ended on 123 for 9. Lost by 27 runs.
The Bowling Was As Good As The Batting
This is the thing about this Rajasthan Royals team that does not get enough attention. Everyone talks about the batting, and fairly so, but the bowling tonight was just as impressive.
Archer got the first wicket and set the tone immediately. Sandeep Sharma dismissed Rohit again and changed the game in the powerplay. Bishnoi came off the bench and wrecked the middle order with two wickets in an over. Burger was consistently fast and accurate and took two wickets himself.
Four different bowlers are contributing meaningfully. No weak link. No over where MI could just breathe and reset.
That is a complete bowling performance. Not one person is carrying the group. Everyone doing their job.
And Riyan Parag Is Quietly Becoming Something Special
People do not talk about the captaincy enough in this RR run of wins.
Parag is 22 years old. He is in his first full season as the permanent captain of this franchise. And he is making decisions that a much more experienced captain would be proud of. Bringing Bishnoi on as the impact sub at exactly the moment when MI needed to be stopped was the pivotal call of the match. It worked perfectly.
He also made 20 off nine balls when he batted. He is contributing to both the decision-making and the runs.
Three Wins From Three. What Does It Mean?
Rajasthan Royals have beaten three very different kinds of opponents in three games. CSK in a batting chase. GT in a last-ball finish where they defended 210. And now MI in a rain-hit 11-over match on a wet Guwahati pitch at 10 PM on a Tuesday.
Different formats, different pressures, different opponents, same result every time. That does not happen by accident.
As for the Mumbai Indians, it is time for a serious conversation inside that dressing room. Two losses from three. Rohit is getting out cheaply again. The bowling expensive again. This is not a crisis yet but if it continues, it will become one fast. A team with that much talent should not be losing like this.
Tonight though, belongs to Guwahati. To the fans who sat through hail and rain and stayed for the cricket. They got one of the evenings of IPL 2026.
Stay ahead with Hindustan Herald — bringing you trusted news, sharp analysis, and stories that matter across Politics, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, and more.
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, YouTube, and join our Telegram community @hindustanherald for real-time updates.
Sports reporter covering cricket, football, and Olympic disciplines, with on-ground event experience.
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
