(Cricket news) After their blistering start to the campaign for KKR, their season has somewhat derailed with two successive heavy defeats as a victory against the high flying Rajasthan Royals is a must. On the other hand, RR have similar woes but will start as favourites for this clash, their talisman bowler Trent Boult might be back for this all important clash.
KKR started off the season with a bang but in the last two matches their weaknesses were exploited very badly by Delhi Capitals and Sunrisers Hyderabad. KKR’s top order this season have scored the least amount of runs at a very poor strike rate. For KKR, they need Venkatesh Iyer to perform as he has only passed the 20 run mark once this season. The team management needs to make a call whether to continue with Aaron Finch at the top or promote someone like Billings who missed the last match due to illness. Against Chakravarthy, Buttler has only scored 12 runs in 8 balls, and has been dismissed twice. Samson, meanwhile, has fallen thrice to Umesh and Narine, striking at 79.67 and averaging 15.67 against the West Indian off spinner. KKR may also look to push Shreyas Iyer down the order to tackle the Chahal threat in the middle overs.
Rajasthan Royals have been heavily reliant on the top order to get the majority of the runs. Shimron Hetmyer has been RR’s trump card this season, he has strike rate of 262.00 which is the best strike rate of any batter who has faced at least 20 balls in this phase this season. In the bowling department all eyes will be on the two spinners Chahal and Aswhin, as both have the edge over Aaron Finch and Nitish Rana. Ashwin may be given a few overs in the powerplay, while they could hold Chahal back for when Rana comes to the middle, with the leg spinner getting the middle-order batter 4 times. Rana averages just 14 against Chahal, striking at 109.80. For them the absences of Trent Boult played a major role in the last defeat as the New Zealand pacer will be the key in the death overs to negate the threat of Andre Russell.
Pitch and weather condition: The Brabourne Stadium has been the highest scoring venue this season and even big targets are not safe considering the boundaries are very small. Dew plays a major role at this venue considering the high humidity that is there. The temperature is going to hover around 30 degrees with no chance of rain.
Interesting facts:
- Sunil Narine will play his 150th match for KKR
- Samson is 49 runs away from the 5000 mark in T20 cricket.
- Trent Boult has returned 78 wickets in 58 games, averaging 21.71 with an economy rate of 7.69.
- After scores of 55 & 30 to start the season, Samson has scored 32 runs in the next 3 innings.
- Andre Russell has the highest strike rate for anyone with any one having 1500 IPL runs. His strike rate is at 178.61 with 1879 runs.
Also read: Miller magic seals three-wicket win for Gujarat Titans against CSK
Probable XI for KKR:
1 Venkatesh Iyer, 2 Aaron Finch/Sam Billings, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Sheldon Jackson (wk), 6 Andre Russell, 7 Sunil Narine, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Aman Khan, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Varun Chakravarthy.
Probable XI for RR:
1 Jos Buttler, 2 Devdutt Padikkal, 3 Sanju Samson (capt & wk), 4 Rassie van der Dussen, 5 Shimron Hetmyer, 6 Riyan Parag, 7 James Neesham/Trent Boult, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Prasidh Krishna, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Kuldeep Sen.
