Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Rajasthan Royals: A Look Back at Their Last IPL Encounter

Sunrisers Hyderabad's (SRH) potent batting lineup and seasoned bowling attack make them heavy favourites going into their IPL 2025 opener against the Rajasthan Royals (RR). With players like Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen, Ishan Kishan, and Abhishek Sharma, SRH is thought to be a team that can score a big amount of runs while batting first.  

Due to Sanju Samson's finger injury, the Rajasthan Royals are facing difficulties. Riyan Parag is the team's interim captain. Their batting lineup has been affected by the absence of English great Jos Buttler, but they still depend on players like Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Rana, and Yashasvi Jaiswal. So far in the IPL, both teams have played 20 games between each other and 11 times SRH has won the games, while RR managed to win only 9 games.

The last time both Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals faced each other was in Qualifier 2 of IPL 2024. In that game, Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Rajasthan Royals by 36 runs as they went into the final of IPL 2024. The game was in Chepauk Chennai and after winning the toss first Rajasthan Royals chose to bowl first. Opening the bowling attack Trent Boult gave the team a good start as he dismissed in-form batter Abhishek Sharma quickly. Rahul Tripathi scored 37 runs from 15 balls helping SRH to gain stability as they kept on losing wickets at regular intervals.

Shahbaz Ahmed's spin helped SRH to win the game

SRH would reach a respectable total of 175 in their 20 overs thanks to Heinrich Klaasen's fifty. Tom Kohler-Cadmore only managed to score 10 runs off of 16 balls, which made the RR chase extremely slow to get going.  Before Shahbaz Ahmed's spin bowling changed the game for SRH, Yashasvi Jaiswal was changing gears. Before getting out to Shahbaz Ahmed he scored 42 off 21 balls. In the pursuit of 176, the RR batting order collapsed, with Shahbaz taking 3 wickets. In the end, RR only managed to score 139 runs in their innings, despite Jurel's 56 off 35 balls.