There is a fine boundary between being assured and becoming careless, and on Thursday night at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow it was that line which proved decisive. When Jitesh Sharma walked in alongside Rajat Patidar, Royal Challengers Bengaluru were pursuing a DLS-adjusted target of 213 and looked well placed. RCB had reached 104/3 after 10.1 overs, with 109 more required from 53 balls—an equation that rarely unsettles batters in the modern IPL, even if the pitch and the situation still demand patience.
Yet the chase was never a straightforward sprint. RCB needed time to find rhythm and, in that context, the innings that Mitchell Marsh and Patidar had built became a useful reference point. Marsh, who finished as the centurion, showed a disciplined temperament during the latter half of his knock. While his half-century arrived off 20 deliveries, his century took 49 balls in total—an indication that the batting improved as he adjusted to the conditions and the demands of the game. Rain interruptions did affect the flow and momentum, but it remained a surface that did not make batting easy. Marsh played with respect for the venue and the match situation, and the result was his second IPL hundred.
Patidar’s plan followed a similar logic. RCB had already lost Jacob Bethell and Virat Kohli within the first two overs, so any chasing innings would need to be grounded early. Patidar did not chase every ball on instinct; he waited for the right opportunities and focused especially on the deliveries that were not good enough. Once he settled, the strike rate lifted—his hitting of Mayank Yadav, a tearaway pacer, was particularly punishing, with boundaries that underlined how quickly a batter can change the tempo when the timing is right.
With Patidar set, Jitesh’s job was simple on paper: stay with him and extend the partnership just a little longer. But the moment did not unfold that way. His approach felt casual, and after only two balls, he chose a high-risk option. Prince Yadav, who had already dismissed Devdutt Padikkal earlier in the same over, delivered an accurate bouncer. If Jitesh had been fully tuned into the conditions and the situation, he would have ducked under it. Instead, he went for an ambitious high pull, the shot went wrong off the top edge, and Rishabh Pant moved in from behind to complete a comfortable catch while retreating.
Jitesh’s dismissal came so quickly that it altered the atmosphere of the chase almost immediately. In T20 cricket, and particularly in IPL run chases, sudden wickets can jolt an innings and sap the required momentum. That is exactly what happened at RCB’s end. The pressure intensified straight after the wicket, and in the very next over—marking the 12th of the chase—Patidar was removed too. This time, Shahbaz Ahmed struck, and Patidar found Aiden Markram at long-off.
By then, the contest had effectively swung away. Extraordinary things can still happen in the IPL, and Tim David along with Krunal Pandya did manage to drag the game closer than it might have appeared. However, the required run rate continued to creep upward, and what started as a promising chase never regained its earlier comfort. One lapse from Jitesh—born out of a lack of awareness—proved costly, particularly because RCB were ultimately defeated by just nine runs.
The broader context also made the dismissal sting. This season, the RCB vice-captain has struggled to find consistent form. In ten matches so far, he had managed only 64 runs, a return that is far from what one expects from a senior figure in the batting order. Form can sometimes slip even for experienced players, but the game awareness required in a chase—especially when a partner is set—must remain. On the night in Lucknow, both the form and the instincts failed to show up at the same time, and that bold high pull sealed the outcome. RCB were close at the end, and the margin of defeat only sharpened the point: if Jitesh had played with match-situation clarity, the chase could have looked very different.
