RR edges GT thriller

Rajasthan Royals won this game twice. First with the bat, when Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel turned a good start into 210 for 6. Then again at the death, when Tushar Deshpande defended 11 in the last over and left Gujarat Titans stranded on 204 for 8 in Ahmedabad. The margin was six runs. The real difference was nerve. RR chose to bat first on a surface that did not offer much help to bowlers, and they made that decision look obvious. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi flew out of the blocks with 31 off 18. Jaiswal followed with 55 off 36, mixing clean drives with the kind of pick-up shots that keep the field moving backward. By the end of the powerplay, Rajasthan had 69. That early burst mattered because it let Jurel build something larger behind it. Jurel’s innings was the center of the match. He made 75 from 42 balls, with five fours and five sixes, and he kept changing gears without losing shape. When Jaiswal fell at 126 in the 13th over, RR still needed a hard finish. Jurel supplied it. Shimron Hetmyer added 18 from eight balls. The last phase brought 45 runs from the final four overs. Gujarat’s attack never fully lost control, but it never regained it either. Kagiso Rabada took two wickets, Rashid Khan one, and all five GT bowlers went at more than nine an over. That total looked heavy, but not safe. Sai Sudharsan made sure of that. He scored 73 off 44 and gave Gujarat’s chase a spine. Jos Buttler added 26 off 14, and GT were 107 for 1 in the 11th over when Sudharsan was still there. On a flat pitch, with dew always a possibility and 10.5 an over not absurd in this league, the chase was alive. Then Rajasthan found the one spell that changed the game. Ravi Bishnoi ripped through the middle order and took 4 for 41. He removed Sudharsan, then Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar, and Rahul Tewatia as Gujarat slipped from control into repair mode. That collapse is the reason the last over was tense instead of routine. Without it, Deshpande never gets his stage. Even so, GT nearly stole it. Rashid Khan made 24 off 16. Rabada, batting at No. 9, added an unbeaten 23 off 16. Together they dragged the target down to 10 off the last six balls. This is where T20 games usually become a referendum on batting power. This one became a demonstration of execution. Deshpande hit his yorkers. He changed pace. He forced Rashid and Rabada to reach for the ball instead of swinging through it. One mis-hit went into the deep when Gujarat needed a boundary. Another ball produced only a scramble. The over ended with GT still six short. That finish said more than the scorecard can. IPL games are full of hitters who can erase 15 in an over and make 210 look flimsy. What remains scarce is a bowler who can still think clearly when every miss becomes four. Rajasthan had one on Saturday. Gujarat did not. Under the lights at Narendra Modi Stadium, with 10 needed and two set hitters alive, that was enough.