Mar 30, 2025, 12:08 PM ET

A no-holds-barred assault from Rajasthan Royals’ (RR) new No. 3, Nitish Rana, carried them to 182, against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), in their quest for their first win of IPL 2025. RR looked good for an even bigger total, but late strikes from Matheesha Pathirana and Khaleel Ahmed held them off.

RR’s captain Riyan Parag had batted at No. 3 in their first two matches of this season, against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Their coach Rahul Dravid had also backed him at No. 3 on the eve of this game against CSK, but RR ended up pushing Rana up to No. 3, ahead of Parag, and he responded by acing his match-up against R Ashwin once again.

Before Sunday’s game, Rana had hit 108 off 58 balls from the spinner without being dismissed in the IPL. Rana welcomed him into the attack in the fifth over with a sequence of 6,6,4. By the time, Ashwin finally dismissed him for the first time in the IPL, off his 71st ball to him, Rana had extended his tally to 141.

Ashwin dipped into one of his old tricks – pause and deliver – to have Rana stumped off an off-side wide for 81 off 36 balls. Fifty-eight of those runs were scored in the powerplay alone. In contrast, Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal had contributed only 20 runs together in the first six overs.

Noor snagged Samson in his first over for 20 off 16 balls and proceeded to dismiss Dhruv Jurel for 3 off 7 balls. Vijay Shankar then pulled off a blinder, running in from deep midwicket, to remove Wanindu Hasaranga, who was promoted to No. 6, ahead of Shimron Hetmyer, for 4 off 5 balls.

Hetmyer could’ve been dismissed on 3 had Jamie Overton not dropped a skier. His evening only got worse after he had leaked 30 runs from his first two overs in the powerplay. Khaleel and Pathirana, however, stepped up with the old ball to keep RR below 200, which was on the cards, especially when Rana was on song.