Super Kings look to bow out on a high as RR eye top 2 finish

To cap off the group stages for another couple of teams, two extremes would collide at the Brabourne Stadium as Chennai Super Kings would take on the Rajasthan Royals. The fate of the table has all but been decided for the Royals even though the official confirmation is still to arrive.

Chennai would be coming to this contest on the back of another lacklustre drubbing at the hands of the  Gujarat Titans as their batters would come a cropper on a tricky surface only managing to post a paltry 133 on the board. Their bowlers tried their best for sure as they would propel the game to final over of the chase but with so little to defend, it wasn’t an easy job for them either.

The Royals have a superior net run-rate that sees them nestled in the third position of the points table and they would be coming to this contest on the back of a clinical win against the Lucknow Super Giants as their bowlers posted a scintillating display, crumbling their chase without breaking a sweat.

For the Super Kings, it would be a contest where they would be able to test their bench strength and will be eager to finish the fray on a decent note while for the Royals they would want some momentum going their way before they step into the play-offs.

Venue Watch:

The Brabourne Stadium is more or less a decent batting surface but with time, it has shown its occasional dalliances with the bowlers. The last game played in the stadium witnessed Rajasthan Royals posting a decent score and was able to defend it easily as the Super Giants barely had any response to the searing drift and pace of the surface. The average score batting first at Brabourne in the ongoing edition of the IPL has been slightly north of 160.

Ideal result for RCB:

Except for an unlikely drubbing for the Royals at the hands of CSK, by a margin so big that the Royals NRR takes a nosedive into the negatives, the comeuppance of this encounter won’t really matter to the Challengers. In case the highly improbable happens, and RR's NRR drops below that of RCB, the men in Red and Gold could get a 'Q' next to their name later tonight.

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

Chennai Super Kings:

MS Dhoni (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Robin Uthappa (wk), Dwayne Bravo, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Devon Conway, Mitchell Santner, Dwaine Pretorious, Narayan Jagadeesan (wk), Tushar Deshpande, Matheesa Pathirana, Adam Milne, Chris Jordan, Maheesh Theekshana, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, KM Asif, Mukesh Choudhary, Prashant Solanki, Simarjeet Singh, Bhagath Varma, Hari Nishanth, Subranshu Senapati.

Match Details:

Rajasthan Royals vs Chennai Super Kings

Venue: Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai

Date: 20th May 2022

Time: 7:30 PM IST