IPL Play of the Day: Rajasthan giveth, Royals taketh away

In the early days of the Indian Premier League 2026, when SunRisers Hyderabad were struggling for form, it was an unassuming game against Rajasthan Royals that provided them important belief.

Riyan Parag's Rajasthan, fresh off a leadership change this year, were on fire, having won four back-to-back games in the tournament. When the Men in Pink travelled to Hyderabad, the match was expected to be a mere formality. Rajasthan were expected to flex their batting muscles, considering how poor SRH had been till that point.

SRH vs RR: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD

However, the script did not quite go according to plan. Two uncapped Indian bowlers, Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain, tore through the RR batting line-up, bagging four wickets each and starting a new bowling revolution in the side.

That match gave SRH the confidence to bench the high-paying Jayadev Unadkat and Harshal Patel for the rest of the season, and instead bank on two young stars to deliver the goods for the remainder of their campaign.

Later in the season, SRH met Rajasthan again, this time in Jaipur, and the competition was a little more balanced. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi took on Praful Hinge, the hero of the previous fixture, and deposited him for four sixes in the very first over. Vaibhav would go on to score a hundred in that game, only to be trumped later in the chase by Ishan Kishan.

These two games formed the foundation of SRH's season this year, showcasing just how destructive their Indian core of batting and bowling could be.

RAJASTHAN TURN THE TIDE

When SRH met Rajasthan for the third time in the tournament, they had a staggering 6-0 record coming into the game. Since 2024, RR had not beaten SRH in a single match.

However, all of that flew out of the window when the 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi decided that Rajasthan were not going to lose another game against SRH on his watch.

On Wednesday, Sooryavanshi pummelled the SRH pacers to score 97 runs in just 29 balls. En route to those 97 runs, he broke Chris Gayle's record for the most sixes in a single IPL season and David Warner's record for the most runs scored in the powerplay.

It is not that SRH were oblivious to what Sooryavanshi was capable of doing. It is not that they did not have plans against the batter either. Pat Cummins handed himself the ball in the powerplay, something that he has rarely done this season. Cummins bowled a couple of yorkers, trying to go under Vaibhav's batswing, a move that seemed to work, briefly at least.

THE BALL THAT BROKE SRH

Having failed to dismiss Sooryavanshi in the first five balls of the over, Cummins took a gamble. He went around the wicket and hurled a 140-kph rocket targeting the top of off stump. The delivery was a brilliant one, and would have crashed into the stumps had it been left alone.

But it was not left alone. In fact, it was not defended at all.

Vaibhav decided to unleash the full swing of his bat and hit Cummins so hard that the ball sailed over the bowler's head. In that moment, the floodgates were suddenly opened. From there, Sooryavanshi went on a spree of big hits, and whatever SRH tried from that point onwards, the short balls, the slower deliveries, the cutters, absolutely nothing worked.

SRH perhaps missed a trick by not bowling Nitish Reddy in the powerplay, or by not introducing spin earlier into the attack. But in the kind of mood that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was in, nobody would have been spared on the night.

The wicket eventually came, and agonisingly so, when Vaibhav top-edged a short ball from Praful Hinge to third man. Vaibhav froze at the crease when the catch was completed, cursing himself for not finishing a century that was deservedly his. It was a century that could have made him the joint-fastest hundred-maker in the history of the IPL.

But it is what it is. Vaibhav had a wry smile at the end of the game as he collected the Player of the Match award, and later stated that just before the wicket ball, he should not have looked at the fielder stationed at third man. In noticing the fielder, he ended up telegraphing his shot towards that region, bringing an end to what could have been one of the standout centuries in Indian Premier League history.

ARCHER WRECKS SRH

Vaibhav's innings did not end the misery for SRH. Coming out to bat, SRH fell apart against the one out-and-out weapon that Rajasthan had, Jofra Archer.

The English fast bowler was taken to the cleaners by the SRH batters because they had no option but to attack on the night. Archer conceded 58 runs, but in return took the wickets of Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, and Travis Head, the top three of the most dangerous batting line-up in the tournament.

All three were beaten for pace on a pitch that was flatter than Indian highways. On that kind of surface, Archer realised that all he had was his attitude and his ability to hit the deck as hard as possible. As he wrestled away three wickets from SRH, Pat Cummins' side were left waiting for a slow and painful death, one that eventually lasted 19.2 overs.

The pain was so immense that Cummins could do nothing but smile during the post-match presentation.

"He played pretty well. Yeah, just don't feel like you have too many options. Obviously, it's a really good pitch, but the margins are so small. If you miss your yorker by a little bit, he doesn't tend to miss them. So yeah, fair play," that was all Cummins could muster about Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the Player of the Match.

A side that was once bullied and harried by the SunRisers had risen from the ashes and beaten Hyderabad at their own game.

During the league phase, Rajasthan had giveth. And in the playoffs, the Royals taketh away.

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