Qualifier 2 got off to an awkward start in Ahmedabad when the coin had to be flipped twice. Match referee Prakash Bhatt simply didn’t hear Riyan Parag’s call the first time, so the whole exercise was repeated. Shubman Gill, who lost both tosses, gave a wry smile, pointing out that he too would have batted first and that, “unfortunately”, the referee hadn’t caught the original call. The first coin appeared to land tails-up, suggesting Gill might feel slightly hard-done-by, but everyone moved on quickly enough.
Parag, happy to have won the toss at the second attempt, stuck to the same plan that beat Sunrisers on this very surface 48 hours earlier. “It slowed up the longer we bowled, so we’ll try to make that work again,” he said afterwards. His XI is unchanged, trusting the mix of young Indian batting and experienced overseas pace to do the job.
Gujarat, who know this used pitch should grip, have swapped out left-arm seamer Kulwant Khejroliya for the towering left-arm spinner R Sai Kishore. The latter hasn’t featured much this season, yet captain Gill felt an extra spinner made more sense than a hit-the-deck quick. “We looked at the surface and thought Sai’s lengths could be handy through the middle,” he noted in the pre-match chat.
Teams
Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Riyan Parag (c), Donovan Ferreira, Dasun Shanaka, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Brijesh Sharma, Yash Raj Punja.
Subs: Shubham Dubey, Sushant Mishra, Aman Perala, Ravi Bishnoi, Tushar Deshpande.
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill (c), B Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Jason Holder, Washington Sundar, Nishant Sindhu, Rashid Khan, R Sai Kishore, Kagiso Rabada, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj.
Subs: Rahul Tewatia, Glenn Phillips, Anuj Rawat, Kumar Kushagra, Arshad Khan.
Why batting first matters
• The black-soil strip has already hosted two games this week; captains expect it to slow sharply after 30-odd overs.
• Dew has been minimal at night, so chasing offers no clear advantage.
• Royals’ spinners—Jadeja and Parag himself—prefer attacking when the surface is at its driest.
What Titans gain with Sai Kishore
The Chennai-born left-armer bowls a stump-to-stump line, uses the crease cleverly and gives Rashid Khan a partner who turns the ball the opposite way. If the pitch does as forecast, two spinners through the middle overs could strangle the run-rate.
Key match-ups to watch
1. Jaiswal vs Siraj: an aggressive power-play hitter against a bowler who loves the new ball swing.
2. Rashid vs Shanaka: leg-spin guile against a hitter fond of mid-wicket.
3. Jadeja vs Buttler: two World Cup-winning team-mates reading each other’s tricks.
In short, Royals have the early scoreboard pressure they wanted, Titans believe an extra spinner balances things out. A tidy, tactical contest seems more likely than a run-fest, but these playoffs have thrown up surprises all week—so don’t rule anything out just yet.
