The 18th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2025) season witnessed its first Super Over between Delhi Capitals (DC) vs Rajasthan Royals (RR) on April 16 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. DC held their nerves and emerged on top as RR were consigned to their fifth loss in the IPL 2025 season. However, RR's tactics were questioned by quite a few experts as they opted not to send Nitish Rana, who had scored 51 off just 28 balls in the Super Over.
RR sent Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, and Yashasvi Jaiswal instead, but the RR batters could only score 11 runs off five balls from the bowling of Mitchell Starc. Also, Parag and Jaiswal were run out on successive balls in the Super Over.
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After the game, Nitish Rana was asked why Royals management had not picked him to do the job in the Super Over, considering he was in good form and momentum.
Nitish Rana on Rajasthan Royals' logic of sending Hetmyer and Parag in Super Over
“The management takes the call, not one person. The captain is there along with two other senior players and coaches,” explained Rana before saying: “If Shimron Hetmyer had hit two sixes, then you wouldn’t be asking this question. I will give the same answer. I don’t have any other answer. Whatever decisions we took was absolutely right. Hetmyer is our finisher, that everyone knows. He has delivered in the past.”
Also Read: Riyan Parag Leads RR in IPL 2025: Nitish Rana’s Classy Response to Surprise Captaincy PickÂ
Rana added: “One person never takes such calls. Management and support staff is there to discuss such things. If the decision was in our favour then your question would have been different. Cricket is a result-oriented sport. If Sandeep Sharma had bowled well in the Super Over, which he has done in the past. In this situation, he was most likely the bowler for us. We were one big shot less. We were targeting 15 runs in the Super Over.”
