Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
In the match 53rd of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, Ajinkya Rahane, the captain of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), took a stunning diving catch after running a fair distance, to get the better of Rajasthan Royals (RR) opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi for four runs in two balls. In pursuit of the 207-run target, the teenage sensation tried to stamp his authority on Vaibhav Arora, but on his second ball, he could only mistime an attempt at a big hit, which led to his downfall.
The dismissal happened on the fourth ball of the first over in RR innings, when Vaibhav Suryavanshi tried to pull the short ball from Vaibhav Arora, which was going away from him. He could only hit it with the bottom half of his bat, spooning it way high in the air before Ajinkya Rahane ran at least 15 meters to his left to take the diving catch, signalling an early end to the batting effort of the teenage sensation.
Watch the video here:
Shortly after, Kunal Singh Rathore lost his wicket to Moeen Ali on IPL debut in RR colours without troubling the scorers. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag shared a 58-run stand for the third wicket, to give some hope to RR, but after Moeen Ali broke the partnership, the batting lineup of the visitors started to crumble once again, finding themselves on 75/5 in nine overs, needing a further 132 runs in the remaining overs.
Below are the playing XIs of KKR and RR for the 53rd match of the IPL 2025:
KKR: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Sunil Narine, Ajinkya Rahane (c), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Moeen Ali, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy
Impact player list: Harshit Rana, Anukul Roy, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Luvnith Sisodia
RR: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Riyan Parag (c), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Kunal Singh Rathore, Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Akash Madhwal
Impact player list: Shubham Dubey, Tushar Deshpande, Kumar Kartikeya, Ashok Sharma, Kwena Maphaka
