It was a record-breaking night at the Sawai Mansingh stadium as the Rajasthan Royals walked away with a comfortable 32 run win over Chennai Super Kings.
Sanju Samson's side did the double over the M S Dhoni-led Super Kings as they climbed back to the top of the IPL 2023 points table. In their previous meeting this season, Royals breached the Lions den in Chennai with a narrow 3 run win.
But on Thursday, it was a one-sided affair as the home team, playing their 200th IPL game, dominated both innings.
It was a match which was won and lost in the two Powerplays. While the Royals put up a sizzling show with the bat, the Super Kings's poor run in the first six overs took the game away.
Opting to bat first at home, young Yashasvi Jaiswal put up a dazzling show for the Royals.
In the current season, Chennai have leaked runs in the Powerplay, but they have bounced back in the middle overs. Thursday's onslaught was too much to recover from.
With Akash Singh beginning the attack with the new ball, 21-year-old Jaiswal (77 off 43) made his intentions clear from the very first ball. The opener hammered Singh with back-to-back boundaries to get the game off to a rocking start.
While Jaiswal scored effortlessly, Jos Buttler joined in, but only as second fiddle.
Fifty runs came up for the opening stand from 28 deliveries. This was the fourth time that Jaiswal and Buttler brought up 50 for the opening partnership in eight matches this season.
Buttler enjoyed the show from the best seat in the house as the pair added 64 runs in the Powerplay.
Though the Super Kings came back into the game with a couple of wickets, the opening stand set Rajasthan up for a strong total.
Devdutt Padikkal and Dhruv Jurel's partnership in the end took Royals to a record-breaking score.
It was the first time a 200+ IPL score was set at the Jaipur stadium.
Notably, this is the 18th time a 200+ score has been posted this season, and we are just at the half-way mark.
In IPL 2022, the 200+ mark had been crossed 18 times the entire season, which reflects the rapid change in the game.
With a tough ask of 203 on the board, Super Kings faltered at the very onset. The in form Devon Conway, who entered the game on the back of four half-centuries on the trot endured an off day with the bat.
Royals's leading wicket-taker in the match, Adam Zampa, removed Conway for a dismal 8 off 16 to begin Chennai's slide.
The Super Kings registered their lowest Powerplay score -- 42/1 -- this IPL. The visitors failed to recover from the slow start as they were restricted to 170/6.
All in all, the match was won by Royals in both the Powerplays -- with the batters dominating first and the bowlers sealing their win during the chase.
