The second qualifier match of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2026) is to be played today i.e. Friday, May 29 at the Maharaja Yadvinder Singh International Cricket Stadium (Mullanpur), New Chandigarh. Today the teams of Gujarat Titans (GT) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) will face each other to get the ticket for the final. In this do-or-die match, everyone’s eyes are once again going to be on Rajasthan Royals’ 15-year-old young sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi.
Vaibhav has surprised the giants with his aggressive and explosive batting this season. In the eliminator match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, he single-handedly kept the team in the race for the finals. He may have missed his historic century by just 3 runs, but by playing a stormy inning of 97 runs, he broke many big records. Rajasthan Royals will again expect similar devastation from their ‘wonder boy’ today.
Today, Rajasthan Royals face the challenge of Gujarat Titans, whose bowling attack has proved to be the most dangerous and balanced this entire season. GT has a deadly foreign gun bowler like Kagiso Rabada in the pace attack, while there are pace merchants like Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna who wreak havoc on Indian pitches. The spin department is headed by the king of T20 cricket, Rashid Khan.
Gujarat captain and think tank have prepared a master plan to tie down Vaibhav Suryavanshi in the powerplay itself. If Gujarat bowlers manage to keep Vaibhav quiet in the first 2-3 overs, they will have a firm grip on the match; Otherwise this 15 year old batsman will take the match one-sidedly.
In the current season, the teams of Gujarat and Rajasthan will take the field against each other for the third time. Interestingly, in the last two league matches, Vaibhav Suryavanshi got an aggressive start against GT bowlers, but he failed to convert it into a big match-winning innings. He was out after scoring 31 runs in one match and 36 runs in the other.
4 April (first clash): The opening pair of Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Yashasvi Jaiswal had thrashed Gujarat’s fast bowlers. Rajasthan had put 69 runs on the scoreboard in the first 6 overs (powerplay) itself. Vaibhav scored 31 runs in 18 balls in this match, but as soon as the power play ended, Rashid Khan trapped him in the trap of playing a pull shot on his short ball and got him caught out at deep mid-wicket.
7 May (second clash): Vaibhav’s fierce form was seen in this match also. He opened his account by hitting a skyscraper six off the ball of Mohammad Siraj and in the next over he hit two consecutive sixes to Kagiso Rabada. In Siraj’s next over, he also hit a hat-trick of fours. But ultimately the victory went to Siraj, who showed Vaibhav the way to the pavilion on a sharp bouncer with a speed of 146.6 km per hour. As soon as Vaibhav was out, the entire batting of Rajasthan fell apart like a pack of cards.
In this great match of Qualifier-2, Gujarat Titans know very well that if the impregnable fort of Rajasthan has to be demolished, then first of all their biggest bastion in the form of Vaibhav Suryavanshi will have to be demolished. If we look at the statistics, in both the matches against GT, Vaibhav has been out after dodging only short pitch (bouncer) balls.
According to experts, Vaibhav Suryavanshi has been seen struggling mainly on two types of balls in IPL 2026:
Accurate Yorker: As long as the bowlers are bowling accurate yorkers at his feet, Vaibhav remains calm and relies on singles.
Sharp Bouncer: His habit of continuously playing big shots on short pitch balls is becoming his biggest weakness. If Kagiso Rabada and Mohammad Siraj are successful in bowling accurate and fast-paced bouncers on the Mullanpur pitch today, then Vaibhav can be trapped in the net once again.
