On the eve of the clash against Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals director of cricket Kumar Sangakkara said promoting Riyan Parag to No.4 was a “cricketing decision” while adding that the “player has to repay that faith”. On Thursday, the Assam batter repaid the faith with interest, by notching up his highest T20 score to propel the side to a match-winning 185 for 5 at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.

Riyan came up with a matured knock to first drag Rajasthan Royals back on track after a rocky start that saw them tottering at 36 for 3 by the 8th over, and then blasted his way to propel the team to a sizeable total, thanks largely to the final over pyrotechnics from the right-hander.

To put things in perspective, Riyan scored just 16 off the first 20 balls he faced, but since then he took off to resurrect a fledgling Royals innings with an undefeated 84 that came off 45, which means 68 off the last 25 balls he faced. Parag creamed 25 runs in the final over bowled by Anrich Nortje.

After being put in to bat, Rajasthan lost Yashasvi Jaiswal early to Mukesh Kumar after which skipper Sanju Samson was packed back by the brilliant Khaleel Ahmed in the last over of the powerplay, at the end of which RR’s score stood at 31/2.

Kuldeep Yadav then dismissed Jos Buttler, who managed just 11 runs off 16 balls. Ravichandran Ashwin then gave RR some impetus after which Parag led their fightback, getting to a much-needed half-century off 34 balls before exploding towards the last five overs of the Rajasthan innings.

In reply, DC got off to a quick start initially before Nandre Burger, brought in as the Impact player, made an instant impact with the dismissals of Mitchell Marsh and Ricky Bhui in the same over to peg the visitors back. Delhi Capitals skipper Rishabh Pant was a pale shadow of his destructive best, consuming 26 balls for his 26 runs while opener David Warner also failed to set the visitors’ chase on fire, and departed one shy of a half century.

Reduced to 105 for 4 by the 14th over, the Delhi Capitals desperately needed a substantial push to open their account in the ongoing IPL but the Rajasthan bowlers, especially leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal’s miserly spell in the middle overs not only stifled the flow of runs but also kept Delhi on the backfoot with the wickets of Pant and Impact substitute Abhishek Porel.

Tristan Stubbs (44 not out off 23) and Axar Patel (15 not out) gave the visitors a glimmer of hope towards the end but it was too late by then as Avesh Khan, entrusted to defend 17 from the final over, gave away just five to restrict Delhi to 173/5.