Match overview
Gujarat Titans beat Rajasthan Royals by 9 wickets on 5 May 2023 at Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Rajasthan Royals won the toss, batted first, and were bowled out for 118. Gujarat Titans knocked off the target for the loss of just 1 wicket, cruising home without needing the death overs. Rashid Khan was named Player of the Match. The result pushed Gujarat's head-to-head lead over Rajasthan to 6 wins from 9 meetings.
The margin was emphatic, but the game's shape was decided in Rajasthan's middle overs. Fifty runs came from the powerplay for the loss of 2 wickets, which looked a reasonable platform. What followed was a collapse: 6 wickets went down for another 50 runs through the middle phase, and the tail added just 18 in the final stage. A score of 118 was never going to be enough.
Gujarat's reply was equally one-sided. Their openers put on 49 in the powerplay without losing a wicket, then added 70 more in the middle overs for the loss of one. The death overs were irrelevant. GT reached the target with runs to spare and barely broke a sweat.
Venue and conditions
Sawai Mansingh Stadium has hosted 97 T20 matches, and the numbers point clearly towards the chasing side. The average first-innings score is 165, while chasing teams win 64 per cent of the time. Rajasthan's 118 sat 47 runs below that first-innings average, which made Gujarat's task more of a training exercise than a contest.
The powerplay average at the ground is 46 runs, so both sides' powerplays were on the higher end of normal: Rajasthan scored 50 in theirs, Gujarat 49. The difference was what came next. Teams batting first average 39 runs in the death overs at this venue; Rajasthan managed 18, which shows where the innings unravelled. The ground's 60 per cent toss-field preference is also worth noting. By choosing to bat, Rajasthan went against the grain of what captains have historically preferred here.
Jaipur's pitch tends to offer something to spin, particularly in the middle overs. That pattern played out here, with Gujarat's slow bowlers doing the bulk of the damage when Rajasthan were most vulnerable.
How to watch
IPL matches are available to UK viewers on Sky Sports Cricket. The full schedule, including match times converted to BST, is listed on the Sky Sports website. Subscribers can stream live via Sky Go on mobile and desktop devices, and a NOW TV Sports pass provides day or month access without a full Sky subscription. There is no free-to-air broadcast of IPL cricket in the UK.
Recent form
Heading into this fixture, both sides had mixed recent records. Rajasthan Royals had won two of their previous five matches, beating Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans (in an earlier meeting), but losing to Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Lucknow Super Giants. The loss to Lucknow immediately before this game suggested some fragility in their batting.
Gujarat Titans' form was slightly better in shape. They had won three of their previous five, defeating Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians, and Lucknow Super Giants, before losing to Delhi Capitals in their most recent outing. The loss to Rajasthan in that earlier head-to-head clearly had no lasting effect: GT arrived at Jaipur in composed form and produced a performance to match. Both sides will face further fixtures in the 2023 IPL group stage, with the final standings still to be decided.
