A bizarre sequence at the toss sparked confusion and controversy before the Rajasthan Royals took on the Gujarat Titans, with the coin flip being carried out twice. Rajasthan skipper Riyan Parag made the choice in the initial round, but match referee Prakash Bhatt said the decision wasn’t heard clearly enough to proceed. That uncertainty forced officials to redo the toss entirely.
Quick facts
- Coin toss conducted twice before RR vs GT
- First toss: Rajasthan’s Riyan Parag chose, but the call wasn’t heard clearly
- Second toss: Parag won again and opted to bat first
- Match played on the same pitch used earlier for the Eliminator
- Gujarat captain Shubman Gill said his team would also have preferred to bat first
- Parag argued the wicket slows down late, suiting Rajasthan’s bowling
When the second toss rolled around, it once again went Rajasthan’s way. Parag emerged victorious in the redo and selected to bat first on the same pitch that had hosted the Eliminator earlier in the tournament. The timing of the decision quickly drew attention, as the pitch was expected to become tougher to bat on during the second half of the match.
The debate around the toss was heightened by how much a used surface can change as overs pass. With the expectation that batting would get significantly harder in the second innings, the redo only amplified the drama heading into a high-pressure clash. In an even more telling twist, Gill later revealed Gujarat would have chosen the same strategy if the toss had gone their way.
Gill stated that his side would have batted first as well, pointing to the fact that the wicket already had a considerable amount of cricket on it. “We would have batted first as well. Forty overs of cricket already on this wicket and it won’t behave differently,” Gill said after the toss. His comment underscored the idea that the pitch’s character was unlikely to improve for teams chasing later.
Parag, meanwhile, supported Rajasthan’s call to put runs on the board upfront. He argued that while the surface was “pretty much the same,” it would slow down towards the backend, giving Rajasthan’s bowlers an edge. “We will bat first. Pretty much the same wicket, but I think it slows down at the backend, and we have the bowlers for it,” Parag said.
With conditions expected to become even more demanding for batting as the game progressed, the unusual retoss added another layer to the storyline before kickoff. What started as a communication problem at the flip ended up becoming a talking point for both captains, especially given the stakes of playing on a pitch that had already been exposed in the Eliminator.
Playing XIs
Gujarat Titans: Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Jos Buttler (w), Nishant Sindhu, Washington Sundar, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Kagiso Rabada, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammed Siraj
Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel (w), Riyan Parag (c), Donovan Ferreira, Dasun Shanaka, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger, Brijesh Sharma, Yash Raj Punja
