Courtesy: BCCI/IPL
Josh Hazlewood, the Australian fast bowler, was at his absolute best with the ball for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), taking four wickets in a high-scoring thriller against Rajasthan Royals (RR), to win for the first time at home in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, RCB were in a tough spot while defending 205-run total on multiple occasions, but Josh Hazlewood came as a lifeline for them, taking wickets of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel, to play a key role in their sixth win of the ongoing season.
In the first over of his spell, the fourth over of the RR innings, Josh Hazlewood started with three dot balls against Yashasvi Jaiswal before the opener managed to hit three fours off him. Jaiswal got two fours and one six at the start of the next over of Hazlewood, but then, the Australian went around the stumps, cramped the left-hander for room, who could only hit the ball straight to the short midwicket fielder, losing his wicket on 49 runs in 19 balls with seven fours and three maximums.
The second spell of Josh Hazlewood began in the 17th over of the RR innings with them needing 46 runs and six wickets in hand. The right-arm fast bowler got the wicket of Shimron Hetmyer for 11 off 8, getting him to under edge the ball straight to the wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma, conceding only six runs in the over.
During the penultimate over of the RR innings, with just 17 runs in the bank and Dhruv Jurel set, Josh Hazlewood dismissed the middle order batter for 47 runs in 34 balls with three fours and three maximums, to bring RCB back into the match. He found himself on a hat-trick after getting the better of his opposing counterpart Jofra Archer on the first ball before leaving 16 runs for Yash Dayal to defend, who did it quite successfully.
With this important win, RCB have climbed to third place on the IPL 2025 points table, accumulating 12 points in nine matches, finding themselves behind Delhi Capitals (DC) and Gujarat Titans (GT) on NRR. Moreover, Josh Hazlewood has equalled GT’s Prasidh Krishna in the Purple Cap race with 16 wickets in nine matches, behind him on economy rate after his player of the match (POTM) performance.
