Rajasthan Royals registered a stunning win over Gujarat Titans on the back of their opening pair – Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vabhav Suryavanshi. However, they gave life to the former when he tried to pull Ishant Sharma in the first ball of the second over and got a top-edge which went towards point. Jos Buttler called for it, ran after it, but eventually failed to grab it.

“We could have and we should have taken that catch, that would have made a big difference,” Sai Sudharsan said after the game, while adding that “we can’t be so harsh”.

However, after that, Jaiswal made 31 in 16 balls in the powerplay and Vaibhav Suryavanshi 52 in 20. RR got to 87 after six overs. They added 166 in 11.5 overs, where Suryavanshi broke records on his way to a 38-ball 101 and Jaiswal finished unbeaten on 70 from 40 balls. The win came with 25 balls in hand despite the target being 210 as well.

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“When we finished [batting], we felt it was par or ten runs over par, is what our feeling was. But the way they started and batted showed us that we were wrong,” Sai Sudharsan, who scored 39 in 30 balls to take the Orange Cap back from Virat Kohli, said. “No credit taken [away] from Vaibhav, the way he batted was tremendous and fantastic to watch, [even though we were] fielding. But at the same time, we could have reacted well. The way they started the powerplay was brilliant, but we could have reacted well and had better plans.

“Maybe the lengths, and we could have been aware of the wicket, how it reacted to the ball, which they bowled in the first innings. Maybe we could have taken cues from that and executed that. Maybe we could have gone wider, we could have not bowled into his arc, maybe we could have done that and things would have been different,” he further added.

Meanwhile, he also opined why Sai Kishore was given just one over in the game despite being their second-highest wicket-taker in the tournament with 12 wickets.

“Sai Kishore came on very late,” Varun Aaron said on ESPNcricinfo’s Time Out show. Sai Kishore’s only over was the 15th of the chase, after Suryavanshi and Nitish Rana had been dismissed. “Yeah, there were two lefties batting, but Sai Kishore can bowl really well to lefties as well. And anyway the guys were going for 25-30 runs [per over]. Somebody who has been performing well, who has the confidence… and Sai Kishore is somebody who likes the challenge.”