Australia Are Coming To Pakistan Without Their Best Players. Pakistan Have Just Lost A Test Series To Bangladesh. May 30 Cannot Come Soon Enough.

 

In nine days, two cricket teams with completely different problems arrive at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium for the first of three ODIs that both of them desperately need.

Pakistan need it because they have just lost a Test series to Bangladesh. At home. In Sylhet. A result so unexpected, so damaging to the confidence of a team already dealing with questions about their direction and leadership, that captain Shan Masood stood in front of the cameras afterwards and said his side needed to find the "root causes" of their recurring failures. He was not wrong. But finding root causes and fixing them before May 30 are two very different things.

Australia need it because the team arriving in Pakistan is not quite the Australia that won the ODI World Cup. Pat Cummins is in Kolkata finishing the IPL season. Mitchell Starc is in Hyderabad. Josh Hazlewood is in Bengaluru. The fast bowling attack that has made Australia the most feared white-ball team in world cricket for the last three years is scattered across Indian franchise grounds, watching their IPL contracts through to the end.

What arrives on Pakistani soil on May 23 is an Australia squad that Mitchell Marsh will captain — the same Mitchell Marsh who has just finished a brilliant IPL season with Lucknow Super Giants, averaging nearly 50 with the bat at a strike rate of 169. An Australia squad that contains Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis, Cameron Green, Adam Zampa, and a collection of emerging talents who are being given a chance to make their case for the ODI World Cup squad.

A depleted Australia. A Pakistan side that has just been embarrassed by Bangladesh. Three matches. Two venues. And a series that, on paper, nobody has a clear claim to going in.

He Was 11 Off 12 Balls. Then Something Clicked. Vaibhav Suryavanshi Made 93 Off 38 — And Rajasthan Royals Are Alive Again.

 

At one point in the fourth over, Vaibhav Suryavanshi had made 11 runs off 12 balls. For a fifteen-year-old who has spent this IPL season hitting sixes that grown men with fifteen more years of experience have never managed, 11 off 12 felt like something was wrong. The crowd at Sawai Mansingh Stadium — his home crowd, the people who have watched him grow up — could feel it too.

Then Akash Singh overpitched. Suryavanshi drove him through covers for four. Then another. Then a reverse sweep for two. Suddenly he was 23 off 16, and the innings that had looked like it might belong to the cautious category — the careful, measured knock — had become something else entirely.

He finished with 93 off 38 balls. Six fours. Eight sixes. His 48th six of the IPL 2026 season — more than any Rajasthan Royals batter has ever hit in a single IPL campaign, surpassing Jos Buttler's record of 45 set in 2022. And when Dhruv Jurel hit the six off Prince Yadav that sealed the chase with five balls to spare, the number on the scoreboard read 225 for 3. Rajasthan Royals had chased down 221 — Lucknow Super Giants' 220 for 5 had been one of the better first innings of IPL 2026's final week — with seven wickets and nearly a full over to spare.

After three consecutive defeats that had threatened to end their season before the final week had even properly begun, Rajasthan Royals are alive. They are fourth on the IPL 2026 points table with 14 points from 13 matches. And the equation, for the first time in three weeks, could not be simpler: beat Mumbai Indians on Sunday, and they are in the playoffs.