Rajasthan Royals have a special, special player in Sanju Samson. In fact, we can’t remember the last time a young Indian batsman made such an impression in the IPL.
His batting against RCB in the last match was exemplary and we hope that the young man keeps performing like that. Nothing can stop him from playing for the Indian team if he manages to do that.
But Royals won’t find it easy against KKR, who have been one of the most impressive teams in this IPL. KKR are led by a very ambitious captain in Dinesh Karthik, who has a point or two to prove.
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They have in Andre Russell perhaps the most valuable player in T20 cricket. The man can bowl fast, field brilliantly and wreck any bowling attack to pieces when he comes out to bat. We can’t think of a more perfect player than that. Russell is all power and if he goes on like this and does not get injured, there is every reason to believe that he will take KKR to the championship.
This is going to be an interesting match as Russell is more comfortable against fast bowling than against spin. Royals have two decent spinners in K Gowtham and Shreyas Gopal who can contain runs. Will be fun to watch how Russell goes after them. Anything could happen.
Royals’ mentor Shane Warne has gone back to Australia for a short holiday, so the mantle of the team passes on to two old hands of Indian domestic cricket, Amol Muzumdar and Sairaj Bahutule.
The most interesting thing to see is whether young fast bowler Jofra Archer gets a game. He was the most expensive pick in the IPL auctions for Rajasthan Royals and it doesn’t make sense for him to be benched. You have to make your most expensive players play, otherwise what’s the point?
Archer has a reputation of being the next Andre Russell, a fast bowler who can be destructive with the bat and is brilliant in the field. But we won’t really know until he plays, right?
This should be a tight contest, and it’s hard to predict a winner. But KKR certainly are the better team of the two.
The Teams
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 D’Arcy Short, 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Rahul Tripathi, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 K Gowtham, 8 Shreyas Gopal, 9 Dhawal Kulkarni, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 Ben Laughlin
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Chris Lynn, 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Nitish Raina, 5 Dinesh Karthik (capt & wk), 6 Andre Russell, 7 Shubman Gill, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Tom Curran, 10 Shivam Mavi, 11 Kuldeep Yadav
Watch Rajasthan Royals play Kolkata Knight Riders tonight at 8 pm on Star Sports!
