Royals and Knights take on each other in Chapter 2 of a thrilling rivalry

Two teams in the opposite ends of the points table in Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals will be stepping on to the field, hoping to set fire to their individual causes. Barring the swashbuckling contest that would involve two juggernauts going head-to-head, vengeance will also be on the cards after KKR’s narrow defeat in their preceding encounter.

The Royals have been in phenomenal form as they sit tight in the third place of the points table with 6 wins from 9 games while for the Knights, it feels that the side is slowly imploding into oblivion with the highest number of players used so far in the latest edition of the fray and with bare minimum results.

Despite momentum on their side, Rajasthan will be treading the grounds very warily considering their latest defeat against Mumbai Indians, a fixture that they should have hoped to conquer without much ado, given the dominating form that they are currently in.

While for the Knights it was another disappointing outing against the Delhi Capitals with their batting order going up in flames that would eventually cause the purple and gold brigade to collapse despite redoubtable efforts from their bowlers.

Somehow for Kolkata it has been a lack of chemistry and the incessant urge in the dressing room to perform experimentations on the team has backfired. Shreyas Iyer hasn’t really lived up to his fullest potential as his proclivity for throwing away starts is accentuating itself with every passing game.

For Royals, the defeat against the Mumbai Indians can be termed as a minor blip, given the terrific form that they have found themselves in. However, if you take Jos Buttler out of the equation, their batting has left a trail of question marks, which if not corrected at the earliest, can be their Achilles heel.

Venue Watch:

Wankhede will stay witness to the maddening hustle of two teams whose batting has sparked a few questions. However, given the batting-friendly nature of the pitch, ideally, it should be the batters who call the shots. The last game played at Wankhede produced a high-scoring thriller between the Giants and the Sunrisers with both teams piling on 180-plus scores. Given the fact that this will be a night encounter, there could also be dew in play, mainly towards the latter half of the game that would make batting easy for the team chasing.

Squads:

Rajasthan Royals:

Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler (R), Yashasvi Jaiswal (R), R Ashwin, Trent Boult, Shimron Hetmyer, Devdutt Padikkal, Prasidh Krishna, Yuzvendra Chahal, Riyan Parag, KC Cariappa, Navdeep Saini, Obed McCoy, Arunay Singh, Kuldeep Sen, Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel, Tejas Baroka, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubham Garhwal, James Neesham, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rassie Van Der Dussen, Daryl Mitchell

Kolkata Knight Riders:

Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer, Sunil Narine, Shreyas Iyer, Pat Cummins, Nitish Rana, Shivam Mavi, Sheldon Jackson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rinku Singh, Anukul Roy, Chamika Karunaratne, Baba Indrajith, Ashok Sharma, Pratham Singh, Abhijeet Tomar, Sam Billings, Alex Hales, Ramesh Kumar, Mohammed Nabi, Aman Khan, Umesh Yadav.

Match Details:

Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals

Venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

Date: 2nd May 2022

Time: 7:30 PM IST