Lucknow, May 28: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) pulled off an incredible run chase of 228 against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and secured a top-two finish in the IPL 2025 points table.
RCB star Jitesh Sharma smashed knock of 85 runs off 33 balls to overshadow LSG captain Rishabh Pant’s fabulous century. Pant had slammed 118 off 61 to take LSG to their highest-ever IPL total of 227.
However, Jitesh’s superhuman effort ensured that RCB secure a Qualifier 1 berth. Virat Kohli also hit a half-century and notched up three mega records during the game.
Rishabh Pant | LSG captain: Eventually you got to play 40 overs of good cricket. 20 overs will definitely not save you in a T20 game and that’s been our story. There were a lot of injury concerns before the tournament, that’s something that hurt us going through the season. (On his hundred) I was feeling well with each and every match but sometimes it just doesn’t come off. Today I made sure that if I am starting well I should make a big one. Like all the experienced players do, learning from the best always. Whenever you get a start, try to make it big as possible. I was trying to play the field, how they were going to bowl, that was something I kept in mind. Playing through the line and looking for the areas and the gaps and kept it very simple. Played every ball with the same intensity and kept on playing with the same intensity throughout the innings. (On this season) There’ll be a lot of areas where we’ll be talking and looking to improve ourselves but the season is just ending, don’t know where the talk is going to go. Just want to switch off for a few days, not think about cricket and then the England series is coming up and just preparing for that in a good frame of mind. (On the positives) The way our batting unit has come up, there have been some special bowling performance also. Digvesh Rathi is one of them, Avesh bowled some crucial overs. We’ve been getting chances but we weren’t able to maintain it for a longer period of time.
Jitesh Sharma | Player of the Match: I can’t express my thoughts, I was thinking about just staying in the present. When Virat got out I thought of taking the game deep and that is what my mentor (Dinesh Karthik) tells me that the kind of calibre I have I can finish the game from any situation. This is a very big franchise and I am enjoying the pressure and when I see these players (like Virat, Krunal and Bhuvi) I feel excited that I am getting to play with these players. We will enjoy this moment and whatever momentum we got in this game, we will take it forward (into the next game). Credit goes to Rajat for giving me this responsibility (maintaining the excellent record of winning away from home this season). Hazlewood is fit and the belief system in our team is very strong and whichever players you see, everyone is a match-winner and even if we lose 3-4 wickets, we always had the belief.
