IPL 2025: Kartikeya, Madhwal come in as RR elect to bowl first against unchanged MI

Jaipur, May 1 (IANS) Kumar Kartikeya Singh and Akash Madhwal come into Rajasthan Royals' (RR) playing eleven as captain Riyan Parag won the toss and elected to bowl first against an unchanged Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 50 of the Indians Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium here on Thursday.

RR are currently in seventh place on the points table and need to win all their remaining games to have a chance at entering the playoffs. But it’s easier said than done against MI, who are on a five-match winning streak. A win for MI on Thursday will help them replace Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the top of the points table.

After winning the toss, Parag said Kartikeya and Madhwal, playing his first game of the current season, have been drafted into the playing eleven due to Wanindu Hasaranga having a niggle, while Sandeep Sharma is unavailable for the rest of the competition after suffering a fracture in his finger, as said by RR before toss happened.

“We might see some dew later. Usually, the wicket settles down a little later at night. Want to exploit that. We've kept it very simple regardless of winning or losing (on celebration after Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s whirlwind century). Rahul sir has made it clear, we keep it simple, whether we go high or low.”

“Three games ago, the message was we take it one game at a time. If we play to our potential, we know how good we can be. Just want to give everyone the freedom to play their game,” he said.

MI skipper Hardik Pandya stated he would have bowled first as well at a venue where they haven’t won a game since 2012. “It has always been about how we can play good cricket. The conversation was always about how we can get better, we've spoken about the same, and nothing changes.”

“We want to be fearless and not let fear of failure kick in. Don't decide how much we need to put on, have a set marker, but we need to analyse the wicket. Quite confident about batting on this wicket. There hasn't been much dew around.”

RR will be donning a special all-pink jersey as part of the match being a ‘Pink Promise’ game. Under this, 100 rupees from every match ticket and sale of special jerseys will go to support women-led rural transformation in Rajasthan, including lighting up six homes in the Sambhar region with solar power for every six hit by either team in the game.

Playing XIs:

Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag (captain), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Shimron Hetmyer, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Kumar Kartikeya, Akash Madhwal, and Fazalhaq Farooqi

Impact substitutes: Shubham Dubey, Tushar Deshpande, Kunal Singh Rathore, Yudhvir Singh Charak, and Kwena Maphaka

Mumbai Indians: Ryan Rickelton (wk), Rohit Sharma, Will Jacks, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya (captain), Naman Dhir, Corbin Bosch, Deepak Chahar, Trent Boult, and Jasprit Bumrah

Impact substitutes: Raj Bawa, Satyanarayana Raju, Robin Minz, Reece Topley, and Karn Sharma

--IANS

nr/bsk/