NEW DELHI: The Rajasthan Royals vs Lucknow Super Giants clash in IPL 2025 on Saturday began with an unexpected moment of laughter, thanks to a toss blooper that had Rishabh Pant and Riyan Parag cracking up at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur.
As stand-in skipper Riyan Parag stepped up to flip the coin, he, quite literally, fumbled it.
The coin barely spun in the air, prompting Rishabh Pant to refrain from making a call. The toss referee called for a redo. On the second attempt, Pant called “tails” and nailed it.
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Laughing right after the failed attempt, Pant couldn’t help but tease Parag: “Tune aise hi fek diya, spin bhi kar yaar!” — roughly translating to, “You just tossed it like that, at least make it spin!”
The moment brought smiles all around and set a light-hearted tone before an intense clash.
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Rajasthan also made headlines by naming Vaibhav Suryavanshi, a 14-year-old prodigy, as their impact substitute.
At just 14 years and 23 days, he becomes the youngest-ever player to be named in an IPL matchday squad. While he didn’t start, Parag hinted that the youngster would be brought in during the chase.
At the toss, Parag explained his decision: “We were looking to bowl first. It’s a little warm under lights, and we’re comfortable chasing here. Vaibhav comes in today. We’ve had honest team chats and are looking to click together.”
Pant, meanwhile, seemed confident in his call to bat first: “The wicket looked dry, so we want to take early advantage. There’s no dew expected. We’re focusing on improving the little things — that’s been our missing piece.”
Lucknow Super Giants (Playing XI): Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant(w/c), David Miller, Abdul Samad, Ravi Bishnoi, Shardul Thakur, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Singh Rathi, Avesh Khan
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubham Dubey, Riyan Parag(c), Nitish Rana, Dhruv Jurel(w), Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Sandeep Sharma, Tushar Deshpande
Get the latest IPL 2025 updates on Times of India, including match schedules, team squads, points table and IPL live score for CSK, MI, RCB, KKR, SRH, LSG, DC, GT, PBKS, and RR. Don’t miss the list of players in the race for IPL Orange Cap and IPL Purple cap.
