Kolkata Knight Riders hope to continue momentum against a bruised Rajasthan Royals

Kolkata Knight Riders gear up again for a battle against the might of the Rajasthan Royals in Match 56 of IPL 2023. The recent tidings of the league have seen KKR turn the tide around in their favour in sumptuous fashion as they sit in the sixth position of the points table with five wins from 11 games. For Rajasthan Royals it has been a slide into chaos with five wins from 11 games out of which they lost four of their last five matches.

KKR will be coming afresh from back-to-back wins against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings in nail-biting contests where they secured the bragging rights in the final over. The win against Punjab Kings was inspired by a swashbuckling showdown from Nitish Rana (51) and Andre Russell (42). Varun Chakravarthy was phenomenal with the ball, bagging figures of 3/26.

Rajasthan Royals had a dramatic heartbreak against Sunrisers Hyderabad as the celebrations were already on in their camp, after keeping Abdul Samad in check. However, coming as a blaring of doom, the siren-call of the no ball pealed out loud. In the delivery that Sandeep Sharma had to bowl again, Abdul Samad belted him for a six, leaving the finalists of the preceding year with an extremely bitter taste in their mouth.

This is the first time that these two teams will meet in IPL 2023 and as the underlying interests of both sides take centre-stage, a win will obviously be burning bright in the eyes of the players. A victory for Rajasthan Royals will propel them to the top five while a win for KKR would also give them a similar spot ahead of the fixtures that follow suit in the ongoing week.

Head to head:

Matches played: 27

KKR: 14

RR: 10

Match Details:

Match: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals

Venue: Eden Gardens Stadium

Date: 11th May, 2023

Time: 7:30 PM

Squads:

Kolkata Knight Riders:

Nitish Rana (Captain), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh, Narayan Jagadeesan, Vaibhav Arora, Suyash Sharma, David Weise, Kulwant Khejrolia, Mandeep Singh, Litton Das, Jason Roy. 

Rajasthan Royals:

Yashasvi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson(c & wk), Devdutt Padikkal, Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, KM Asif, Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, Dhruv Jurel, Sandeep Sharma, Murugan Ashwin, Donavon Ferreira, Kunal Singh Rathore, Abdul Basith, Kuldeep Sen, Kuldip Yadav, Obed McCoy, KC Cariappa, Akash Vasisht, Adam Zampa, Joe Root