Royals at sixes and sevens as they search for the right combination

One week into IPL 2025, bowlers are lamenting the lack of contest between the bat and the ball.

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Kagiso Rabada has suggested renaming the sport "batting", while Shardul Thakur wants 250 vs 250 pitches to be penalised. But when a surface offered a hint of spice, like the one in Guwahati on Wednesday, Rajasthan Royals (RR) were not capable of making the most of it, and it had to do with personnel and tactics.

Teams usually field seven batters when setting a target and bring in a bowler as an Impact Player when defending.

On Wednesday, RR relied on six batters to set the target, a tactic that worked in three of their five games in IPL 2024, when they made the playoffs. But Sanju Samson's finger injury restricts a few aspects of his batting,

Yashasvi Jaiswal is struggling for fluency, and Riyan Parag is adjusting to a new role at No. 3. And RR were left in a pickle midway through their innings.

To lengthen their batting, RR promoted Wanindu Hasaranga to No. 5 against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), ahead of Dhruv Jurel, who only three nights ago had played a blinder to spark life into a daunting chase against SRH. That afternoon, his 35-ball 70 powered RR past a top-order collapse. Here, the Hasaranga experiment was quickly ended by Varun Chakravarthy.