These aren’t great times to be a Rajasthan Royals fan. The franchise suffered its 5th successive loss of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season, going down against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in a thrilling contest on Thursday. The defeat kept the Royals at the 8th spot in the points table, with just 2 wins in 9 games. After the game, a fan recorded the franchise’s Chief Executive Officer, Jake Lush-McCrum, walking towards a famous liquor store in Bengaluru, and the video quickly went viral on social media.
With the match not ending in Rajasthan’s favour, Lush-McCrum’s act gave fans plenty to joke about on social media. However, whether that actually was the RR CEO or not, can’t be said with certainty based on the video alone.
RR owner walks straight to Tonique after the loss against RCB#RCBvsRR pic.twitter.com/p1HkR06isd
— Sumukh Ananth (@sumukh_ananth) April 24, 2025
As for the match, Josh Hazlewood starred with 4-33 in Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s 11-run IPL win at home against Rajasthan Royals, who won the toss and chose to field first Thursday.
Chasing 206 to win after Bengaluru’s 205-5, Rajasthan looked comfortable before Dhruv Jurel was dismissed by Hazlewood in the 19th over of the chase. Jurel scored a 34-ball 47 and was removed with 17 needed off 9 balls for the win.
Hazlewood removed England’s Jofra Archer on the next ball, leaving the Royals reeling with 17 needed off the final over.
Earlier, Virat Kohli hit a 42-ball 70 to steer Bengaluru to a par score on a batting friendly Bengaluru wicket.
Openers Kohli and Phil Salt raced to 59-0 in the powerplay before Salt was removed on 26 in the seventh over with the team on 61-1.
Kohli then built an important 95-run partnership with Devdutt Padikkal before finally falling in the 16th over to Archer.
Padikkal, who was batting very well, fell soon after a 27-ball 50, with Bengaluru on 161-3.
Quick wickets towards the end took away the momentum before key cameos by Tim David (23) and Jitesh Sharma, who remained unbeaten on 20.
Indian Test opener Yashasvi Jaiswal hit 19-ball 49 before he was removed by Hazlewood.
His opening partner, Vaibhav Suryavanshi fell early on 16 to India veteran Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who finished with 1-50 in his four-over spell.
Spinner Krunal Pandya bowled an important spell and removed both Nitish Rana (28) and Rajasthan skipper Riyan Parag (22) who looked dangerous after the fall of initial wickets.
Rajasthan were cruising before Rana’s wicket in the 14th over but its batters failed to convert starts into a score to help their team cross the finish line.
With AFP Inputs
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