RCB captain Rajat Patidar with Virat Kohli; and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi of RR GUWAHATI: All the talk about Rajasthan Royals’ brilliant start to the season has focused on a certain 15-year-old phenom Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. The eve of the Royals’ third and final home game of the season here at their ‘second home ground’ was no different, even as defending champions Royals Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), inspired by King Virat Kohli, came to town for the first time.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SIGN UP NOW!Royals fast bowling coach Shane Bond was full of praise for the teenage prodigy on Thursday. “He’s incredible. I have a 17-year-old son and when I compare him to Vaibhav, what he does is remarkable,” Bond said. The former Kiwi pacer highlighted his maturity level and developing awareness of the game, adding: “It’s not just reckless batting, he’s picking the right balls and showing growth. There’s maturity in his batting.”While the boy diva expectedly carried his flamboyance into match-defining knocks up front, his ‘senior’ opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal showed his class with calm and composed knocks to retain the Orange Cap with 170 runs including two half-centuries from three matches.If the batting led by the openers’ blistering innings provided the home team with solid platforms for victory, their bowlers did their job almost to perfection. On Friday, however, he will take on a side in similarly good form. Defending champions RCB have comfortably won their first two matches and seem to have picked up where they left off last season.With the batting and bowling units firing in unison, the Rajat Patidar-led side will aim to stop the Royal juggernaut before they move on to their home in Jaipur. While all the top batsmen have been firing for RCB, it has been Devdutt Padikkal who has held the limelight for scoring beautiful half-centuries in the last two games. GAME NUMBER
- 4 – Ten-wicket wins for RCB, the most in the IPL. Two of them came against Rajasthan Royals, at Bengaluru in 2010 and at Wankhede in 2021.
- 113 – Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 113 off 72 balls in Jaipur on April 6, 2024 is the highest individual score in RR-RCB matches.
—Stats: Rajesh Kumar
