'Best innings of the season' - Moody, Abhinav marvel at Jitesh's blitz
When he walked in to bat, RCB had a 21.09% chance of a win according to ESPNcricinfo's forecaster. He finished the game with eight balls to spare
ESPNcricinfo staff
28-May-2025
Jitesh Sharma's unbeaten 33-ball 85 in Royal Challengers Bengaluru's (RCB) top-two sealing win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) ranks only at No. 23 on the list of highest individual scores of IPL 2025. But, according to Tom Moody on ESPNcricinfo's Time Out, it was the innings of the season. Undisputed.
When Jitesh arrived in the 12th over at the fall of Virat Kohli's wicket, the chances of an RCB win in their chase of 228 stood at only 21.09% according to ESPNcricinfo's forecaster. But he bashed six sixes and eight fours in Mayank Agarwal's company to seal the win with eight balls to spare.
"The innings is, for me, the innings of the IPL this season by a stretch," Moody said after the game. "We've seen some great knocks from young and old, but this one, wow, quite remarkable!
"The team was totally against it - backs against the wall, Kohli in the sheds, [Phil] Salt in the sheds. There was significant headwind, but he just ignored it all and just took the game apart. He not only took the game apart, he played smartly, just the way he went about it was like he'd been there and done it before many, many times."
A highlight of Jitesh's innings was how he maneuvered the field changes employed by LSG captain Rishabh Pant by finding pockets of spaces for his boundaries with ease. He also rode his luck - surviving a run-out chance, getting a reprieve off a no-ball, and escaping a run-out attempt at the non-strikers' end. Abhinav Mukund, on Time Out, said while Jitesh did enjoy some fortune, he also learnt from RCB's previous game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) where they lost by 42 runs despite being ahead of the chase at one point.
"And that's a great sign of any IPL cricketer, right?," Abhinav said. "They were 172 for 3 in the last game, chasing 232, they got 189 all out. I know the wickets fell before him, but the pressure increased in the last game right after the timeout. I feared the same when he got out of that no-ball, but luck is a beautiful thing there. You get a reprieve and then you say, 'okay, this time I'm not making a mistake again.'
"That's exactly what happened. I'm very, very happy for Jitesh, but this is exactly what you're paying the big bucks for as a mid-order batter. And he's proven that a plenty. On a night when your top wicketkeeper or your World Cup wicketkeeper [Pant] gets a hundred and everyone's happy, this guy's got one better, I would think, with 85* off 33."