Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s electrifying 78 off 26 balls and Dhruv Jurel’s compact 81 off 43 helped Rajasthan Royals to a convincing six-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore in Guwahati on Friday. This was defending champions RCB’s first loss in IPL 2026.
Despite Jurel taking them home, the contest will be remembered for another of Sooryavanshi’s stunning innings. It included eight fours and seven sixes and placed the Royals firmly in place for their chase of 202.
One of the main points of interest was how the 15-year-old stood up to the world best bowlers.
He was undaunted by Jasprit Bumrah’s presence at the same venue the other day, insisting that he focused on the ball and not the bowler. On Thursday, Josh Hazlewood will remember how this wonder kid treated him with disdain in his first spell.
Sooryavanshi smashed Hazlewood for three consecutive boundaries followed by a six to unsettle the Australian fast bowler in his opening spell. He then completed his half-century off 15 balls with back-to-back sixes off Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
It was mainly because of Sooryavanshi that the Royals reached 97/1 in the Powerplay, the highest this season. His 108-run partnership off 37 balls with Jurel put the Royals firmly in the driver’s seat.
But Krunal Pandya claimed two wickets off as many balls as RCB threatened to make a comeback. Sooryavanshi flat-batted him to long-on and then Shimron Hetmyer gave catching practice to short third man.
Patidar stands tall
Captain Rajat Patidar’s 63 off 40 helped RCB recover from early setbacks and
reach 201/8.
A top-order collapse had left RCB in dire straits but Patidar led a solid recovery with assistance from Romario Shepherd (22 off 11). Virat Kohli (32 off 16) started promisingly but was undone by a Ravi Bishnoi beauty.
Having been forced into a corner because of some probing spell by the Royals bowlers, RCB were forced to debut Venkatesh Iyer as an Impact Player in place of Devdutt Padikkal. RCB’s original Impact Player plan was clearly Suyash Sharma, but a batting collapse — 125/7 in 14 overs — forced a rethink.
After a slow start when Iyer was 9 off 9 balls, he managed to force the pace in the last over of the innings bowled by Sandeep Sharma, yielding 21 runs and including two sixes. Iyer remained unbeaten on 29 off 15.
If Jofra Archer and Bishnoi led the slide in RCB’s batting, Brijesh Sharma complemented their efforts with a disciplined spell. Having made his name in the Bengal Pro T20, where he picked up 11 wickets in seven matches for Sobisco Smashers
Malda, Brijesh was picked up by the Royals for his base price of ₹30 lakh.
The medium pacer struck vital blows removing Jitesh Sharma and Tim David. Jitesh was leg before to one that skid low in his first over, and then the dangerous David heaved a slower length ball to long on in his second.
Jofra strikes
Archer provided the Royals a dramatic start after nearly an hour was lost because of rain on Friday. It took a vicious short ball from the fast bowler to dislodge his England teammate Phil Salt.
The ball flew off Salt’s gloves before he could even sway out of the line for Jurel to complete a simple catch behind the stumps. There’s precious little Salt could have done, he just saw in dismay as the events off the opening ball of the match unfolded.
It was an eventful first over. Apart from Salt’s wicket, Archer nearly had Kohli off the last ball as he nicked a lifter past a diving Jurel.
Archer had a second wicket when Padikkal miscued a flick down towards long leg
for Hetmyer to complete a superb catch.
Kohli was undeterred by all this as he never wasted an opportunity to score runs, relying mostly on boundaries.
