Salt's punishing fifty takes RCB over the line

Two markedly different philosophies went head-to-head in Jaipur. Royal Challengers Bengaluru have built their team to attack from ball one. They have batting depth down to No. 8. Rajasthan Royals keep going into their games with not enough firepower. They had Wanindu Hasaranga at No. 7. So even though it was one of their players that put on a clinic - Yashasvi Jaiswal making 75 of his team's 173 - the opposition ended up winning. Phil Salt smashed 65 off 33. Virat Kohli brought up his 100th T20 fifty. It was almost too easy (especially with so many dropped catches - there were four in four overs at one point).

They're 116 for 1 in the 12th over.

At the same time, Royals were 97 for 1.

Once again that suggests how RCB have the personnel and the confidence to hit out from ball one. Royals though were circumspect.

The Impact player makes an impact. He can bowl left-arm orthodox. He can bowl left-arm wristspin (one of those legbreaks almost knocked Salt's off stump out in the seventh over). Now he bowls seam up and Salt looking to clear the long boundary on the leg side gets caught at midwicket

RCB's last game turned when Phil Salt got run out in the powerplay.

Here he's been able to play through it and he's been able to play his way.

Constantly looking for boundaries. He's got 10 in 30 balls.

And they've come all around the wicket. He whipped Archer for six over square leg. He drove Hasaranga for four through cover. He charged out of his crease when Sandeep went slower ball and smacked him over mid-off for six. And there was cleverness involved as well.

He moved across his stumps against Archer because the leg side was the smaller boundary. He made room against Sandeep because the off side was the smaller boundary.

Salt dropped again on 40 off 20 by Jaiswal at cover. He got both hands to it as he dived low to his right but it pops out. There was still a run-out chance on offer but Sandeep didn't back up at the bowler's end and Jaiswal's throw didn't hit direct.

Sandeep Sharma almost made good on his match-up against Virat Kohli with his very first ball of the day. Before today, he'd got rid of the RCB batter seven times in 16 innings. No one has done it more in the IPL. Here he could've had him for 7 off 6 if Riyan Parag had been able to take a skier at mid-on.

Sandeep then drops Salt (23 off 13) off his own bowling.

The leg side is the shorter boundary and so Salt is moving across his crease to open it up. The boundary in that sequence could've been a catch, Shimron Hetmyer running several yards to his left and diving with one hand out to try and get the ball. He couldn't. The next ball disappeared into the crowd. Pristine connection.

Matt Roller reminds us that "Jofra vs Salt will be a nice head-to-head in the run chase. Never face each other in T20s but have been team-mates with England, Sussex and as teenagers back in Barbados growing up"

Salt was asked about this in the pre-match interview and he said, "I don't want to give anything away, I don't want to disappoint the viewers. I hope I get the wood on him today because if I don't, I'll be hearing about it for a long time."

Salt has faced 73 balls in the powerplay and hit 27 of them to the boundary in IPL 2025. That's a BpB ratio of less than three.

That boundary off the first ball was given off the bat - inside edge - but the umpires were being generous. It was just sheer movement off the seam that cut the batter in half. Salt responded to that by moving across his stumps, banking on the seam movement now, to pull a six over fine leg. The over ended with a big lbw shout. Archer beat his England team-mate for pace but the impact was marginal on off stump and the on-field decision was not out.

Yashasvi Jaiswal made 75 off 47 balls to carry Rajasthan Royals to a total of 173 for 4 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the first game of IPL 2025 in Jaipur.

Jaiswal was able to score so quickly on a slow pitch because he has shots all around the wicket and doesn't always look for the right ball to play them. His first boundary was a prime example of this, when he turned a back of a length delivery into something else by charging at Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He made good of his match-up against spin - he averages 169.5 against it since IPL 2023 with a strike rate of 148 - because he was willing to indulge in shots like the reverse sweep and the lap sweep.

Just before he was dismissed, Jaiswal played the shot of the day, a scoop off Josh Hazlewood even though the bowler went wide of off stump to deny the leg side to him. While all this was happening, the batters at the other end - try as they might - could only score 47 runs in 49 balls. Sanju Samson had a difficult return to a ground where he's had a lot of recent success. Three of his last six innings in Jaipur have been half-centuries. This one though was a struggle. He was 5 off 11 before falling for 15 off 19.

Royals' lack of batting depth might be compelling them to be a little more cautious than ideal in T20 cricket and the innings was fizzling out. Dhruv Jurel was 2 off 8 but he rallied alongside Shimron Hetmyer and Nitish Rana to help his team score 47 runs in the last four overs to take them up to 173, which is just shy of the average first-innings score (180) at Sawai Man Singh stadium in IPL since 2023. RCB put in a good shift, with only two of the six bowlers they used going at over nine an over. Krunal Pandya got through the day with a wicket and an economy rate of just 7.25.

Royals' have a run rate of 10.86 in the death overs (17 to 20). That's on the lower end of the table in IPL 2025. Only SRH, CSK and MI have been slower in this phase of play

Dhruv Jurel has picked up his scoring rate, but Yash Dayal is able to close out the over (19th) better. He bowled too full and didn't bowl wide enough on the first two balls and got hit straight over his head and then into the short leg side. Then he switched to his yorkers and got reverse swing with it.

Bhuvneshwar gets hit in the 20th and that gives Royals a little bit of momentum. 47 off the last four overs.

Jaiswal made 75 off 47 while he was out there with 10 fours and 2 sixes.

The batters at the other end made 47 off 49 with four fours and 1 six.

Riyan Parag is gone in the 14th over. Undone by the lack of pace in this pitch. Yash Dayal harnessed it beautifully when he went back of the hand slower ball and dug it into the pitch. The extra bounce those revs created were the key there. Ball hit high on the bat as Parag tried to cut it. He did hold his shape. He did time the shot relatively okay. Wrists starting to roll to try and keep it down. But the bounce got him. Top work from Dayal.

First over, since the seventh, without a boundary. The seventh was a wicket-taking over too.

Royals have tried to hit the ball to the boundary only 22 times in 13 overs. More than half of those (13) are Yashasvi Jaiswal's. He is their crown jewel and he is batting really well on a pitch that has challenged him. He can do this because he has an array of shots - a reverse and a lap have got him two of his nine boundaries - and he actually has a functioning back foot game. He can cut and pull and balls don't need to be short for him to look for those shots either.

He had a strike rate of 126 over the last couple of years against spin.

Every single ball he's faced in this innings has been against spin and he's hit three high quality boundaries. A late cut against a ball that wasn't really short. A hard-hit cut in front of square with the ball not coming onto the bat. And a quick arm-speed pick-up shot for six

Meanwhile, Parag is dropped on 13 by Dayal at point in Suyash's first over (the ninth of the innings).

The average first innings score in Jaipur since IPL 2023 is only 180. Not high scoring and that is how this game is playing out too. Bhuvneshwar Kumar got swing in the first over. Josh Hazlewood was extracting more bounce than the batters liked. Yashasvi Jaiswal had to run down the track to get his first boundary. Couldn't stand and deliver. Sanju Samson had to wait till the final over of the powerplay to get his first boundary.

Last time RCB had to content with a wicketless powerplay was 14 matches ago, against SRH last year. But five balls into the middle overs, they get rid of Samson for 15 off 19. Krunal Pandya showed that spin really wasn't coming onto the bat. The wicket was to a ball that stayed low.

Sanju Samson has three fifties in his last five innings in Jaipur. He's averaging 139 and striking at 150. He's being kept quiet right now. 5 off 11 after five overs. A batter with the smoothest touch you'll ever see has already shown signs of desperation, when he backed away to create room but was shut down by Josh Hazlewood following him with a hard length ball. This is a lovely battle in the powerplay itself.

Jaiswal eases the pressure off his captain in the fifth over against Dayal. He's 29 off 19.

Josh Hazlewood has the best economy rate (5.26) and the highest dot-ball percentage (67%) among everyone who's bowled at least five overs in the powerplay in IPL 2025. He isn't the one opening the bowling for RCB though.

The new ball went to Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has the second-best economy rate (6.23) in the powerplay (min five overs again) and the second over went to Yash Dayal, whom RCB have been very big on. He was the one who bowled the over that took them into the playoffs last season and he is the one they are happy to take punts on. They did in the Mumbai game earlier this season to see if they can make the most of a match-up with left-arm pace against Rohit Sharma

There might have been similar considerations today.

Royals are going in with just six batters in their line-up (Hasaranga listed at No. 7). Will that shape the way they bat? You usually need the comfort of depth to risk hitting out from ball one. Then again, this is the combination they've been using and they are the second-quickest scoring team (10.66 rpo) in the powerplay

Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the toss and chose to bowl on a Jaipur pitch that both captains thought would get better for batting later on in the day. In a sign of the faith that RCB have in their current squad, Rajat Patidar did not feel the need to make any changes to the XI even though they lost their last game to Delhi Capitals a few days ago.

Sanju Samson though was able to welcome back one of their key players, Wanindu Hasaranga. The Sri Lankan legspinner has picked up six wickets in three matches, all of them in the middle-overs (7-16),in IPL 2025 and his return, at the cost of left-arm quick Fazalhaq Farooqi, might be crucial to a side looking to bounce back from a defeat of their own, to Gujarat Titans.

Rajasthan Royals: 1 Sanju Samson (capt, wk), 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Riyan Parag, 5 Dhruv Jurel, 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Maheesh Theekshana, 10 Tushar Deshpande, 11 Sandeep Sharma

RR Subs: Kumar Kartikeya, Yudhvir Singh, Shubham Dubey, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kunal Rathore

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Virat Kohli, 3 Rajat Patidar (capt), 4 Liam Livingstone, 5 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 6 Tim David, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Josh Hazlewood, 10 Yash Dayal, 11 Suyash Sharma

RCB Subs: Devdutt Padikkal, Rasikh Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh

Vaibhav is 14 years old, just fyi.

Pitch report: Looks good for batting. Might help spin in the second innings. Bat first is the consensus. One square boundary is bigger (62m vs 69m) than the other.

The entire office just yelled at me to put their combined runs tally as well but that's too obvious so :P

Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid are the only two Indian batters with over 1000 runs for RCB. Rajat Patidar (985) and Devdutt Padikkal (963) may join them later today.