Rajasthan Royals Beat LSG by 40 Runs — IPL 2026 Match 32 Review

There is a particular cruelty in losing at home with a full crowd behind you and a bowling attack that had done everything right. Lucknow Super Giants won the toss at Ekana, put Rajasthan Royals in to bat, and Mohamed Shami — exactly as advertised, exactly as the surface demanded — struck twice in the powerplay, dismissing Yashasvi Jaiswal for a quickfire 22 and picking up a second scalp to leave Rajasthan wobbling at 32 for 2 after three overs. Mohsin Khan bowled a maiden and dismissed Vaibhav Sooryavanshi — the teenager who became the youngest batter to reach 500 IPL 2026 runs at Ekana, a milestone that deserved a better ending — and a different team might have crumbled. Instead, Rajasthan rebuilt patiently through Shimron Hetmyer's 22 and Riyan Parag's composed 20 before Ravindra Jadeja arrived in the lower middle order and did what Jadeja always does: not the spectacular thing, but the necessary one. Jadeja's unbeaten 43 off 29 balls, finished with a 49-run partnership alongside impact substitute Shubham Dubey — who entered in the 16th over and immediately changed the energy of the innings — pushed Rajasthan to 159 for 6. It was precisely the kind of total Ekana can make look like 185 on a dry surface: difficult to construct, harder to chase. LSG's response was worse than inadequate. They were bowled out for 119 in 18 overs. Rishabh Pant, the ₹27-crore homecoming hero, was dismissed by Nandre Burger for a three-ball duck. Aiden Markram made a six-ball zero. Ayush Badoni, caught in a catastrophic miscommunication, was run out without scoring. Only Mitchell Marsh, alone among the recognized batters, showed anything approaching a plan — his 55 off roughly 39 balls, ended when Burger held his nerve in the 16th over, delayed the inevitable but could not prevent it. Jofra Archer, 3 for 20, was immovable. LSG's fourth consecutive defeat, their third straight at home.

Rajasthan's innings was not a masterpiece of aggressive batting — it was a masterpiece of survival, absorption, and knowing when to shift gears. Shami had them rocking in the powerplay, 32 for 2, the surface gripping and the Ekana crowd fully behind the home bowlers. It was in that moment, when the match appeared to be falling into LSG's lap, that RR's character was tested and found to be genuine. Parag, the young captain under scrutiny for his own batting form, contributed a steady 20 off 19 before falling — not the innings his critics wanted, but a functional one. Hetmyer's 22 provided momentum before Mohsin Khan intervened. But the match was wrestled from the grip of indecision by Jadeja in the final four overs. Arriving in the lower middle order with RR needing to push beyond a mediocre total, he played the innings that only fifteen IPL seasons can produce: every shot selected with absolute clarity, no energy wasted on celebration or self-congratulation, simply the accumulation of runs with maximum efficiency. When Shubham Dubey arrived from the bench as an impact substitute in the 16th over — bringing energy, fresh legs, and the specific ability to clear the rope under pressure — Jadeja orchestrated their 49-run stand with the authority of a senior partner who knows exactly where to find the boundary and exactly when to hold off. The final five overs yielded enough runs to make 159 feel like 175 to a side that would proceed to collapse entirely.

The story of Lucknow's batting innings is one that the franchise will want to process privately before discussing publicly, because there are no satisfying explanations — only uncomfortable facts. Pant, their captain, their ₹27-crore investment, their supposed match-winner at home, lasted three deliveries against Nandre Burger and was caught by Dhruv Jurel — a wicketkeeper who had already been dismissed by Shami earlier in the evening, completing a perfect symmetry of disappointment for anyone who had backed the captains to dominate this match. Markram, the experienced international who was supposed to anchor the middle order, made six balls count for nothing. Badoni, the local who plays this ground more than anyone else in the XI, was run out without facing a meaningful delivery — a moment of miscommunication that, in a different season, would have been a footnote. In this one, it felt emblematic. Only Marsh produced anything resembling a match-winning performance. His 55 — measured at first, then increasingly aggressive as the equation grew more desperate — was a reminder of how good he can be when conditions require a hybrid approach of technique and power. That he was eventually dismissed by Burger in the 16th over, caught at cover off a slower ball, was the defeat arriving in instalments. Archer, having been held back by Parag, delivered with the precision of a bowler who understands how to read a match: 3 for 20, the wickets coming at the moments when LSG were building towards a partnership that might have made the final equations interesting. He never allowed the interesting to arrive.

Ekana performed exactly as its reputation promised. The surface gripped from the first ball — Shami exploiting it with that long, lovely run-up and the seam-position discipline that makes him so difficult to play in the powerplay. The ball deviated laterally in the first six overs, encouraging both seamers to aim at the top of off stump and trust the surface to do the rest. By the middle overs, the pace had slowed enough for spin to become central — and yet Jadeja's batting contribution rather than his bowling emerged as the decisive factor, which says something interesting about the way LSG's bowling handled the back end of RR's innings. Dew arrived on schedule from around 8:30 PM and theoretically smoothed LSG's chase — but when you are 30 for 4 chasing 160, the condition of the outfield is the last thing concerning the dressing room.

Ravindra Jadeja has won Man of the Match awards for four-wicket bowling spells, for match-winning innings under extreme pressure, for catches at deep square leg that changed games in a single moment. Wednesday's award at Ekana was for something more subtle: the ability to be exactly what his team needed, when they needed it, at precisely the stage when no one else could provide it. At the point Jadeja arrived at the crease, Rajasthan needed roughly 45 runs from the final five overs on a slow pitch, with their top order already dismissed and the field restrictions gone. A lesser lower-order batter would have swung hard and hoped. Jadeja assessed the situation with the unhurried intelligence of a fifteen-year professional, found the gaps that the field left open, struck the ball along the ground when the shot was on and over the rope only when the boundary was guaranteed, and delivered 43 not out off 29 balls with a calmness that belied the difficulty. The 49-run partnership with Dubey — itself assembled with the quiet efficiency of a plumber who knows exactly which pipe to tighten — is what separated a total of 140 from a total of 159. Those 19 runs changed the match. They were the difference between a target that LSG's middle order, even at its best, could have managed, and a target that required a collective effort of quality that Lucknow, on this particular evening, simply could not produce.

We tipped Lucknow to edge it at Ekana — home surface, home crowd, Shami's seam movement, Pant's genius in his fortress. Shami delivered precisely what we predicted: two wickets in the powerplay, economy rate under seven, the ball doing exactly what a dry Ekana surface offers. We also flagged Jadeja's bowling as a key middle-overs weapon — and while he almost certainly bowled his overs economically, it was his bat rather than his ball that proved decisive. We did not adequately account for the version of Pant that goes for a three-ball duck. We noted the importance of Archer's pace in the powerplay; his three wickets came in the chase rather than the powerplay, but the impact was identical to what we described. The pitch read was accurate — 159 sits exactly within the 155-165 range we modelled for Ekana. The result was not what we predicted, but not because our analysis was wrong. It was because cricket, as ever, was smarter than the analyst.

For Rajasthan Royals, the points table now shows something meaningful: second place, 10 points from 7 games, a two-match losing streak ended with authority. The combination of Archer's pace, Jadeja's all-round craft, and Parag's growing tactical intelligence as a captain is beginning to look like the formula Sangakkara always believed it would be. For Lucknow, the alarm bells are ringing at full volume. Four consecutive defeats — three at home — have left them ninth on the table with four points from seven games. Pant's form is the most urgent conversation: a ₹27-crore captain who is running out of home games to rediscover his best. The franchise has the talent to turn this around; what they appear to lack right now is the collective belief that the talent is enough. That gap between ability and belief is the most difficult gap to close in T20 cricket, and Lucknow will need to close it quickly.