Follow UsRajasthan Royals (RR) and their new skipper, Riyan Parag, were on the wrong side of things in their IPL 2025 opener against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on March 23 in Hyderabad. On his captaincy debut, Parag’s men ended up conceding 286/6, the second-highest total in IPL history, as Ishan Kishan scored a 45-ball century.
Despite conceding 286/6, the 23-year-old responded that it was the “right call to bowl first”. However, he insisted that their bowling unit could have executed better.
"Tough, as I'd expected. Credit to SRH, but we could've executed better. We'll sit down and chat about how we could do better. I feel collectively, we took the decision to bowl, it was the right decision, we were neither here nor there with the ball, could've done better,” Parag said in the post-match presentation.
“We could've restricted them a little lesser at the toss, I said 200 something like that, 220-240 would've been a good score to chase down,” he added.
For the Royals, however, it wasn’t a one-sided dominance, as Sanju Samson made a stellar start to the season, smashing a 37-ball 66. Towards the end of the second innings as well, the duo of Shimron Hetmyer (23-ball 42) and Shubham Dubey (11-ball 34) took the Royals to 242/6, as they fell short by 44 runs.
“Some of the batters looked really great - Sanju bhaiyya, Shubham, Hettie. With the ball, Tushar, Sandeep - they bowled well. Wins or lose, we take the learnings and forget the result."
Rajasthan Royals’ next clash will be against Kolkata Knight Riders on March 26 (Wednesday).