Rajasthan Royals are off to a rocky start in the ongoing IPL (Indian Premier League) 2025. After losing their first two games of the season against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders, Royals followed it up with an emphatic win against Chennai Super Kings.
With one win in three matches, Royals will hope to continue their momentum from the last game and register a win. However, throughout the first three matches, the performance of star opener Yashasvi Jaiswal has been under the radar.
The opener has registered scores of 1, 29, and 4 against SRH, KKR, and CSK, respectively, and speaking on his form, former India cricketer Aakash Chopra took centre stage and backed Jaiswal to get back to top form against Punjab Kings.
"The last match was a near-perfect game (for RR), although Yashasvi Jaiswal has still not scored runs. It's extremely important for runs to come from Yashasvi Jaiswal's bat as the openers need to score runs. Yashasvi Jaiswal hasn't played a single good knock thus far. So my focus will be on how Yashasvi plays," Chopra said in a video on his YouTube channel.
"Sanju Samson is back as a captain and a keeper, and I like that because it's not right to sit out for 20 overs and then straightaway come to bat. It's even more difficult for a keeper as he is always in the game and would have assessed the conditions quite nicely before going to bat," he added.
Furthermore, Aakash Chopra asked Punjab Kings to not change anything ahead of their clash against Rajasthan Royals as they have been in excellent form as of late.
"The (Shreyas) Iyer and Punter (Ricky Ponting) pair are doing very well, and their performances have been incredible. Do they need to change anything? Just play like this. Don't change anything. The combination they played against LSG, I think that works best, that was leaving out Azmatullah Omarzai and playing Nehal Wadhera," he said in the same video.