Sanju Samson made 47 to give RR impetus in powerplay.
The loser will face the winner of the Eliminator between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), which will be played on May 25, in the Qualifier 2 on May 27 in Ahmedabad.
GT won the toss and Hardik Pandya chose to bowl first. He also said that Alzarri Joseph replaced Lockie Ferguson in the playing XI from the last game. RR came into this crucial match unchanged.
While GT managed to get Yashasvi Jaiswal out early for 3 runs, Jos Buttler clawed his way through the innings despite struggling early on to get any timing. Meanwhile captain Sanju Samson gave a good start scoring 47 in 26 balls with 3 sixes and 5 fours and added 68 runs with Buttler for the second wicket.
Then Devdutt Padikkal contributed 28 runs in 20 balls with 2 fours and 2 sixes. However, in the last five overs, Jos Buttler flicked a switch and moved up two gears, and smacked the GT bowling to all parts of the Eden Gardens.
Jos Buttler got run out for 89 in 56 balls with 12 fours and 2 sixes while Rajasthan Royals finished their 20 overs on 186/6. Rashid Khan bowled his 4 overs for 15 runs but couldn't take a wicket.
The cricket fraternity was all praises for Jos Buttler’s amazing knock on Twitter as he hurt GT a lot in the last half of the innings helping RR to a good total in a crunch match.
Here are the tweets: