Rajasthan Royals will lock horns against table-toppers Kolkata Knight Riders in the 70th match of the ongoing Indian Premier League 2024 at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium, Guwahati on Sunday. After dominating the first half of the season, RR have veered off the track, losing their last four matches on the bounce.
Mostly, teams want to peak at the business end of the tournament and this slump in form is a major concern for the inaugural champions, especially when the playoffs are on the cards.
RR batted with a timid approach in the previous match against Punjab Kings while playing at the same venue, which was a tad slow. The Sanju Samson-led team could only manage 144 runs on the board and they need to adopt an aggressive batting approach, which has worked wonders for them.
Moreover, Jos Buttler has left the team for national duty, which is a big blow for RR at this stage of the tournament.
On the other hand, KKR has been the best team in the tournament so far, managing nine wins in 13 matches with one game ending in a no result. With 19 points under their bag, they have sealed their top-two finish in the points table.
KKR has adopted an aggressive batting strategy and their openers – Sunil Narine and Phil Salt – have led the way. Furthermore, Narine and Varun Chakravarthy have done a fine job with the ball.
Match Prediction: Kolkata Knight Riders will enter the contest as favorites against Rajasthan Royals.
KKR Squad: Shreyas Iyer, Phil Salt, K.S. Bharat, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (AFG), Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford (WI), Manish Pandey, Andre Russell (WI), Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine (WI), Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc (AUS), Dushmantha Chameera (SL), Sakib Hussain, Mujeeb Ur Rahman (AFG).
RR SQUAD FOR IPL 2024
Sanju Samson (c), Jos Buttler, Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Donovan Ferreira, Kunal Rathore, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Sen, Navdeep Saini, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Sharma, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Adam Zampa, Avesh Khan, Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Abid Mushtaq, Nandre Burger.
