Good morning,
It's Sunday. Maybe you're reading this over chai, recovering from a late-night IPL binge, or pretending you'll step outdoors before the second game begins. Either way, Gujarat Titans spent Saturday night looking like one of those annoying classmates who does everything right while Rajasthan Royals are slipping into that familiar second-half haze again.
Here's Cricbuzz Pulse, your 2-min morning scan of the IPL-verse.
@B0$
Jofra Archer's opening over featured wides, a no-ball, and 11 separate run-ups before he could complete it.
Gill and Sai Sudharsan smashed RR into submission with 82/0 in the Powerplay
It didn't help that regular captain Riyan Parag was out with a hammy issue, but the spinners dragged things back briefly after the carnage
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi threatened another ridiculous chase with a 16-ball 36
Rashid Khan then arrived and folded the innings like laundry with 4 for 33.
@B1$
Rashid Khan drifted one into Donovan Ferreira, who had his front foot planted looking to turn the ball for a single. Instead the ball ripped past his bat and bowled him. A fizzing legbreak that the batter had no clue about. Asked about it in the post-match chat, he had "made that movie in my mind" and knew the wicket was gonna come "as soon as the ball went from my hand."
@B2$
Jofra Archer gets the @B3$ for RR's tone-upseting opening over.
Sai Sudharsan and Shubman Gill share the @B4$ for becoming one of IPL's most prolific batting pairs with their ninth century partnership, the joint second-most.
Sooryavanshi gets the @B5$ for smashing sixes, getting hit on the boot, limping around briefly and then resuming batting like nothing happened.
The @B6$ goes to SMS, Jaipur, where RR have lost 7 of their last 8 matches.
Tushar Deshpande receives the @B7$ for undoing two overs of decent death bowling in a matter of three deliveries.
@B8$
RR have dropped out of top-four for the first time this season. Until April 24, they had this year's best bowling numbers: 52 wickets, 21.63 average, 14.8 strike rate, 8.76 economy and 38.7% dot balls, all ranked No. 1. Since then, they have the league's worst economy (11.40), only 16 wickets in four games and have conceded 906 runs at 11.67 per over. Key bowlers have run out of steam too, with Ravi Bishnoi and Nandre Burger combining for 1/194 in 13.3 overs across the last four games before being dropped. Jofra Archer and Brijesh Sharma have gone from under 8 RPO to over 11. @L0$ time RR seem to have slowed after a fast start to the season...
@B9$
Rashid Khan admitted he "did hurry" during his recovery from back surgery last year, calling it "a huge mistake", and said this year is more about enjoying his bowling again.
Shubman Gill hailed the "clean win" and said GT's bowling philosophy is built around the belief that "the only way to contain teams now is to keep taking wickets" because "there is no other way."
Kagiso Rabada described bowling to Vaibhav Sooryavanshi as "just hedging your bets and hoping it comes off", which was effectively another way of saying: good luck.
Stand-in captain Yashasvi Jaiswal said "it's cricket" when referring to Jofra's off day in the field and he "didn't think that much" about leaving out Burger.
@B10$
GT have now won 7 out of 10 games against RR, including 3 wins in four games at Jaipur
@B11$
Birdies tell that a few IPL players are still instinctively looking for the nearest camera every time a teammate says something remotely funny, but the BCCI bosses seem firmly @L1$ now. Secretly happiest about it all are the franchise social media managers, who finally have the dressing-room content market back under control.
@B12$
@L2$ at Chepauk before Raipur stages @L3$ later in the evening, weather permitting. @L4$, who's looked in top form after a disappointing Test debut earlier this year, whereas @L5$ Whether he leads again will depend on Hardik Pandya's fitness.
@B13$
It will be a 10-over shoot-out between RCB and MI, and the Raipur faithfuls will wait until midnight to see some action.
