IPL 2025 As it happened - SRH vs RR - SRH 286, Kishan 106*, Head 67

In IPL 2024, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) took batting to dizzying heights. With Ishan Kishan’s addition to an already power-packed line-up, everyone wondered if they might be the first team to hit 300 in the IPL. In their first fixture of IPL 2025, they seriously threatened to reach that total, thanks to Kishan’s 45-ball hundred on franchise debut and Travishek’s opening salvo. They eventually fell 14 short of 300, and just one short of IPL record they had set last season, but it was another emphatic statement of their high intent and power.

Kishan is an upgrade over their previous No.3 Rahul Tripathi. He seamlessly slotted into SRH’s line-up, clattering an unbeaten 106 off 47 balls, his first IPL ton. After Head and Abhishek had helped SRH take 94 in the first six overs, the fifth-highest powerplay total, Kishan launched from there.

Rajasthan Royals (RR) made a decent fist of the chase, with Saju Samson and Dhruv Jurel matching the intent and power of SRH’s batters with half-centuries. But such a mammoth target was always going to be unchaseable.

The full report will be up on the site shortly.

Harshal bests Samson with a slower bouncer while Zampa has Jurel holing out to Kishan at long-on. Both set batters are gone. SRH on course for a massive win.

Simarjeet pounded the hard length with the new ball. With the older ball, he's been too full or short. Jurel pounces on those lengths, taking him for three sixes in three legal balls. Samson closes out a 26-run over with a four of his own.

He seems to have hurt his hand while attempting a catch at short fine leg. Shami drops it, winces in pain, and leaves the field. Baby comes on as sub.

He gets to the landmark off 26 balls. Jurel is closing in on his own fifty. But the asking rate is shooting up towards 17 an over. RR need 160 off 60 balls with seven wickets in hand

Travis Head can put his feet up after his powerplay heroics with the bat and a short stint in the field. Samson greets Zampa with a pair of boundaries down the ground. Samson and Jurel take 14 runs off Zampa's first over.

In the very next over, Jurel backs away, manufactures swinging room and laces Abhishek over extra-cover for six.

Samson and Jurel have pushed RR to 77 in the powerplay, despite the loss of three wickets. But it's still 17 runs fewer than SRH's tally during this phase.

Samson, who is working his way back from a finger injury, is batting without any apparent discomfort. Jurel has also run away to a fast start.

Abhishek's second ball to Samson turns big but Samson survives a stumping chance. Will it encourage SRH to bring in Zampa or local leggie Ansari as the Impact Player?

Back of a length and on off. At over 140kph. This is a flat pitch, but Simarjeet and Shami have made inroads with their hit-the-deck hustle. Nitish holes out to mid-off for 11. Samson, RR's Impact Player, has been quick off the blocks, but the early wickets have set RR so far back in this steep chase.

RR suffer an early blow in a mammoth chase, with Jaiswal falling for 1 off 5 balls in the second over. SRH's new boys Simarjeet and Manohar combine for the wicket.

Simarjeet hits 142ks. Bowls short and wide. Jaiswal aims to free his hands and cuts in the air, but Manohar leaps at backward point, with the ball sticking in his left hand.

Simarjeet cranks it up to 145ks, pounds it on a hard length. Parag can neither pull or cut from this length. The line is also on the stumps. RR's captain ends up flapping a catch to mid-on. Double-strike from Simarjeet on his SRH debut. RR are 25 for 2 in two overs.

New IPL season. Same-old Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). They looked to launch every ball into orbit and threatened to hit 300 for the first time in the IPL. They eventually fell 14 short of 300, and just one short of their own record of the highest IPL total.

Ishan Kishan, SRH's new recruit, marked his franchise debut with a 45-ball century - his first in the IPL. Kishan is an upgrade over their previous No.3, Rahul Tripathi, and seamlessly slotted into SRH's sixy batting line-up.

Travishek had laid the platform with a 45-run opening partnership off just 19 balls. The stand ended when Maheesh Theekshana hid the ball away from Abhishek's reach and had him caught at point for 24 off 11 balls. The assault was so unfettered that SRH forced Rajasthan Royals (RR) into doing death bowling from the powerplay onwards. SRH plundered 94 in the first six overs, the fifth-highest powerplay total in the IPL.

Head continued his boundary-hitting spree along with Kishan in an 85-run stand off 38 balls. During that period, it appeared like 300 was within SRH's reach.

Kishan announced himself with back-to-back fours off mystery spinner Theekshana and went onto bring up his fifty off 25 balls. He needed only 20 more balls for his hundred.

Head had also looked good for a century of his own until Tushar Deshpande struck in his first over and had him holing out for 67 off 31 balls. Nitish Reddy and Heinrick Klaasen also joined the fun as SRH kept finding or clearing the boundaries.

Each of SRH's top six, including IPL debutant Aniket Verma struck at over 200. Jofra Archer had a rough return to the IPL, coming away with 4-0-76-0, the most expensive spell in the IPL.

Kishan has seamlessly slotted into SRH's sixy line-up with a 45-ball ton on his franchise debut. Travishek had set the platform. He has simply launched from there. SRH need 27 off the last over to hit 300

Jofra Archer has had a nightmarish return to the IPL, conceding 76 runs in his four overs. It's the most-expensive spell in IPL history. Mohit Sharma had previously held the unwanted record, having given up 73 runs in four overs vs DC last season.

Sandeep bowls a hip-high short ball outside off, he takes pace off, but Klaasen manufactures pace for himself and shanks it over midwicket for a massive six. He scythes the next ball to the third-man boundary to pile the runs and misery on RR's attack. SRH are 233 for 3 in 17 overs.

The off-side wide rule has been invoked for the first time today. Hawk-Eye tech is being used to judge both off-side and head-high wides in IPL 2025.

The subjective element involved in deciding wides will also be removed from this season as the IPL has decided that the wide guideline - usually in blue - will move with the batter. For example, if a right-hand batter moves one feet to his right outside off stump, the wide guideline will accordingly shift the same distance and will be used to adjudicate a wide.

The Hawk-Eye technology will carry out the measurement automatically - both how much the batter has moved and how much the guideline moves. The TV umpire can see the movement on his screen and can adjudicate whether it is a wide or not based on whether ball pitched within or outside the revised wide guideline. The measurements will not be shown on TV screen and will only be visible to the TV umpire. The return crease, marked white, will not move. Also, the new system will not be applicable to adjudicate leg-side wides.

Reddy throws his bat at ball outside off and sends a thick outside edge that runs away to the third-man boundary. "Joint-fastest team 200 in the IPL, alongside RCB's against KXIP in 2016, in a 15-over game," Sampath Bandarupalli says.

In the same over, Theekshana has Reddy holing out for 30 off 15 balls in his first competitive game back from injury. Over to Klaasen and Kishan as SRH look to break the 300 barrier.

Kishan marks his SRH debut with a 25-ball half-century. He gets there with back-to-back sixes off Archer, whose day has got worse. He has already leaked 57 runs in three overs. And this already Archer's most expensive spell in the IPL.

RR's new recruit Tushar Deshpande has been introduced into the attack in the tenth over. He's doing death bowling in his first over. That's how Head and Kishan have been treating RR's attack. Deshpande goes very full and wide. He has it finishing wider than a set of stumps outside off. Head has to reach out for the ball and ends up carving a catch to Hetmyer at cover. Head is gone for 67 off 31 balls. Deshpande marks his return from an injury layoff with a first-over wicket.

Any respite for RR? Not really. Reddy arrives and hits his second ball for four.

He gets there off 21 balls and celebrates the landmark with a four over extra-cover next ball. Archer is off the attack after just one over, but neither Sandeep or part-time offspinner Nitish Rana can rein SRH in. They continue to rattle off boundaries.

Sandeep bowls a slower bouncer into the pitch. It's a fairly good delivery. But Head makes it look like an awful one. He holds his shape for long enough, gets on top of it, and flat-bats it over the covers once again. SRH are 123 for 1 in nine overs.

Can SRH go onto break the 300 barrier?

Nathan Leamon, who was the lead analyst for England when they scored the three highest totals in men's ODIs, believes 300 will happen.

"Yes, absolutely," Leamon told ESPNcricinfo before the start of this season. "We have already seen a huge escalation in scores over the last two years. It would be naive to think that we have got to the fullest extent of that - of teams learning how to take advantage of the new laws. Although average scores have gone up, but it's more the variance, the spread of scores has increased hugely. You have seen several games where 260 has been scored, which never used to happen. You have seen several games where teams score a 100 in the powerplay; I think there were one or two very famous instances of that happening in the whole history of T20 cricket before now. So something has changed."

Archer missed IPL 2024 as the ECB took control of his workload. Head welcomes him back into the league with a 23-run over. Kishan keeps up SRH's high intent at the other end as they end the powerplay at 94 for 1.

Sampath Bandarupalli: Only the second time Jofra Archer conceded 20-plus runs in an over in the IPL. He conceded 27 runs in an over vs PBKS in 2023, which included 5 wides while Liam Livingstone scored 21 of the other 22.

Is 300 on for SRH?

SRH's new recruit Ishan Kishan in at No.3. Here's our stats whiz Sampath Bandarupalli: SRH's top three of Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Ishan Kishan is the first featuring left-hand batters in the IPL since SRH fielded Parthiv Patel, Shikhar Dhawan and Kumar Sangakkara in 2013 vs CSK

This is the third over of the innings, bowled by Farooqi. The Afghanistan left-arm quick found a tinge of swing in his first over, but it has disappeared in his second and he's being dumped to the boundary by Travishek.

Time for RR to go to Archer? Not yet. The keep faith in Theekshana and on cue, he delivers the first breakthrough for them. The mystery spinner hits a hard length and tries to hide the ball away from the swinging arc. Abhishek miscues it to cover-point and falls for 24 off 11 balls.

After playing out two dots, Abhishek gets cracking. He whips an inswinging full-toss to the left of mid-on for four and then flays Farooqi over extra-cover.

Theekshana, picked ahead of Haranga, has an inauspicious start with a front-foot no-ball and an off-side wide. Head joins the fun by slapping the mystery spinner for four and then pumping a six straight over his head. SRH are 24 for 2 in two overs.

Riyan Parag won his first toss as IPL captain, opting to bowl against hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the afternoon fixture on the first double-header Sunday of IPL 2025. Parag also confirmed that Rajasthan Royals' (RR) regular captain Sanju Samson, who is currently recuperating from a finger injury, will slot in as their Impact Player when they chase.

RR will line up with an all-Indian top six, including Samson and Vidarbha's Shubham Dubey. They packed their attack with three overseas bowlers: Jofra Archer, Fazalhaq Farooqi and Maheesh Theekshana, who was picked ahead of his Sri Lanka senior Wanindu Hasaranga. Finisher Shimron Hetmyer is the only overseas batter in their entire squad.

As for SRH, they picked just overseas players in their XI - captain Cummins, Travis Head and Heinrich Klaasen - and handed an IPL debut to 23-year-old MP batter Aniket Verma. SRH have the option of bringing in Adam Zampa as their Impact Player when they bowl later in the evening.

Verma, 23, has played just representative T20 so far, in December 2024, when he was dismissed for a duck. He was plucked out of the Madhya Pradesh T20 league where he was the top run-getter with 273 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 195 for Bhopal Leopards. Former Chennai Super Kings quick Simarjeet Singh was picked ahead of left-arm seamer Jaydev Unadkat, who was listed among their Impact Subs.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Travis Head, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan (wk), 4 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 5 Heinrich Klaasen, 6 Aniket Verma, 7 Abhinav Manohar, 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Simarjeet Singh, 10 Harshal Patel 11 Mohammed Shami.

Impact Subs: Adam Zampa, Sachin Baby, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari

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

Impact subs: Sanju Samson, Kwena Maphaka, Kunal Singh Rathore, Kumar Kartikeya, Akash Madhwal

Seven years after winning the Under-19 World Cup in 2018 under Dravid, Parag will captain RR, with Dravid as the new coach of the franchise. At 23, Parag will be the among the youngest captains in the league.

Parag will stand in for Samson, who is working his way back from finger surgery. Samson, though, is set to play as a batter (perhaps as an Impact batter) until he gets cleared for keeping and fielding duties. Parag will lead RR for their first three games in IPL 2025.