On Wednesday, April 9, Gujarat Titans (GT) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) faced off in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 Match 23 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. After winning the toss, RR decided to bowl first in the hopes of receiving assistance from Dew later.
Shubman Gill (2 off 3) gave GT an early setback, but Sai Sudharsan (82 off 53), Jos Buttler (36 off 25), and Shahrukh Khan (36 off 20) put GT in a position to score a lot of runs. With a late surge from Rahul Tewatia (24* off 12), GT managed to finish with a very respectable 217.
Nitish Rana (1 off 3) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (6 off 7) were out in three overs, giving RR a poor start to their reply. Together with Shimron Hetmyer (52 off 32) and Riyan Parag (26 off 14), Samson (41 off 28) effectively put an end to RR’s chances of winning the game with their wickets. They ultimately lost by a colossal 58 runs, which has negatively impacted their NRR.
Talking Points
1. Jofra Archer bowls a fiery opening spell
After Samson chose to bowl first, RR pacer Jofra Archer began the innings breathing fire. The Englishman was pumped up and bowled with great pace, gradually increasing it in the first over. His last ball of that over touched 152.3 kmph which is one of the fastest deliveries of the season.
Archer came back for his second over soon and knocked Shubman Gill’s stump back with a pacy 147 kmph delivery. The right-armer welcomed his compatriot Jos Buttler with a venomous short delivery which the batter survived. Although Archer did not get any wickets later he continued to bowl as fast as he could. He ended up with figures of 4-0-30-1.
2. Sai Sudharsan’s purple patch continues
GT and Tamil Nadu opener Sai Sudharsan was the star of the match. The southpaw continued his good run of form today as he got going right from the beginning. Sudharsan played shots all over the field and kept the run-flow steady from his end. He formed two crucial partnerships – 80 with Buttler and 62 with his TN teammate Shahrukh Khan.
Sudharsan struck eight fours and three sixes to end up at 82. He looked like getting to a century but was caught behind off Tushar Deshpande’s delivery in the 19th over. He is now the second-highest run-scorer in the tournament with 273 runs from five innings, just 15 runs behind the leader Nicholas Pooran.
3. All-round bowling performance from Gujarat Titans
After setting a 218-run target, the GT bowlers gave their team a great start with two early wickets. Arshad Khan and Mohammed Siraj were the destructors in the initial overs. Despite a couple of partnerships GT found their way to scalp wickets. The fall of wickets was regular and hence the opposition could not gather any momentum to overhaul the big total.
GT used six bowlers and all of them picked up at least one wicket. The pick of them was Prasidh Krishna with figures of 4-0-24-3. Rashid Khan and Sai Kishore picked up two while Siraj, Arshad and Kulwant Khejroliya picked up one each.
Who Said What?
Sanju Samson, Rajasthan Royals Skipper
Around 15-20 runs too many in the bowling. Whenever we wanted to carry the momentum we lost wickets, when me and Hetmyer were batting it was still chaseable but my wicket changed the game. There was some purchase, the way Jofra bowled and picked Gill’s wicket. But the way we bowled at the death, we need to look at it in the meeting tomorrow and come back better. When you lose games we also think should we have chased or batted first, we were expecting these conditions, this was a really good wicket, we want to respect the conditions and want to be a team who can win games while chasing.
Shubman Gill, Gujarat Titans Skipper
Good total on the board, it wasn’t easy in the first 3-4 overs. The way Sai and Buttler batted was amazing. We’ll take 220 any day of the week. And then our fast bowleres were very clinical to finish off the job. If you have difficulty in choosing the man of the match, it is a good problem for us to have. We are having a team where everyone contributes. Very pleased, when you have bowlers like Rashid it makes the captain’s job easy. Everyone is very nice to me.
Sai Sudharsan, Player of the Match
IPL is the kind of tournament where you need the momentum from the start. Always a joy to contribute to team wins. The wicket was seaming a bit, so I took some time but knew we couldn’t take a lot of time. Then I wanted to take the game deep. We wanted to have wickets for the death. We have the awareness if we lose early wickets that the set batter has to play long. I always try to see what I can do better, trying to improve my awareness and skill. I have worked a lot of basics which is helping me be a versatile batter.
India
