SRH vs RR, IPL 2025: The 2016 champions, Sunrisers Hyderabad opened their IPL 2025 campaign against the inaugural winners Rajasthan Royals at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday. The game bore an uncanny resemblance to the recent meetings between the sides.
The matches between SRH and RR in 2022 and 2023 were both day games. SRH started with a night game in 2024, whereas the Royals started with yet another day game last season, against the Lucknow Super Giants.
Skipper Kane Williamson won the toss for Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2022 and asked the Rajasthan Royals to bat first.
SRH’s stand-in skipper Bhuvneshwar Kumar did the same thing in 2023. Riyan Parag, RR’s stand-in captain for the first three games of this season, did the same thing on Sunday against the most destructive side of the 2024 season.
Captains who won the toss against SRH last season inserted SRH to bat on 6 occasions in 2024, and they were on the losing side on 5 of those matches. MI, RCB and DC paid heavy price for their decision by conceding 277/3, 287/3, 266/7. On Sunday, Riyan Parag gambled big time by inserting SRH to have a first go at the conditions.
Captain Sanju Samson’s 55 off 27 guided SRH to a commanding total of 210/6 in 2022. He scored 55 off 32 in the following year, taking RR to yet another daunting score of 203/5. SRH usurped everything by smashing the 2nd highest total in IPL history, 286/6 on Sunday.
RR restricted SRH to 149/7 and 131/8, posting wins with comfortable margins of 61 and 72 runs in those two day-time encounters against SRH in 2022 and 2023.
On Sunday, SRH were always ahead of the game although Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel briefly threatened with a fine century stand.
Earlier in the match, Rajasthan Royals won the toss and opted to bowl. Ishan Kishan remained unbeaten with a score of 106 off 47 balls and Travis Head helped him with the bat to score 67 off 31 balls to lead their team to the second-highest total ever. They both smashed 20 boundaries and nine sixes together in the match. However, Head got out by Tushar Deshpande.
However, RR lost to SRH by 44 runs as they could only score 242-6 in 20 overs. For RR, Dhruv Jurel scored 70 runs off 35 deliveries, while opener Sanju Samson scored 66 runs off 37 deliveries. Shimron Hetmyer hit 42 off 23 and Shubham Dubey scored 34 in 11 deliveries.
Rajasthan Royals Playing XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubham Dubey, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag(c), Dhruv Jurel(w), Shimron Hetmyer, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Tushar Deshpande, Sandeep Sharma, Fazalhaq Farooqi
Sunrisers Hyderabad Playing XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen(w), Aniket Verma, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins(c), Simarjeet Singh, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami
RR Impact Subs: Sanju Samson, Kunal Singh Rathore, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya, Kwena Maphaka
SRH Impact Subs: Sachin Baby, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari, Adam Zampa, Wiaan Mulder
