Rajasthan Royals have one thing going for them – Sanju Samson. Samson has been brilliant in the 2018 Indian Premier League. He has been one of the finds of the tournament and it won’t be long before we see him wearing India colors.
But to be frank, the rest of the team has disappointed. Royals look like a very confused and disjointed outfit. The confusion starts at the top. Ajinkya Rahane, the captain, is always under pressure to justify his position as a T20 cricketer. He has been scoring fast, but not making too many runs.
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He does not have a proper opening partner yet. Royals have tried D’Arcy Short and Heinrich Klaasen at the top, and they have both failed. They might bring back the guy who did so well in this spot for the now defunct Pune Warriors, Rahul Tripathi and play the South African Heinrich Klaasen in the middle order, where he is far more comfortable at.
The other worry is that the Royals have a very weak bowling attack. While the young and unknown spin bowling pair of K Gowtham and Shreyas Gopal have done well, the Royals’ pace attack really looks poor if we are being honest.
The much vaunted Jaydev Unadkat, who was the most expensive pick in the IPL and was bought by the Royals for over Rs. 6 crores has been a massive disappointment.
The Royals management must be scratching their head, wondering why they paid so over the top for someone who is basically an average medium pacer – no pace, non-threatening for the most part, hardly takes any wickets and even incapable of stopping the run flow. We can reliably inform you that every club side in Mumbai or Bangalore has a medium pacer like Unadkat!
Mumbai Indians had their first win when they beat Royal Challengers Bangalore in the last game quite comfortably. In that game, they had captain Rohit Sharma coming back to form and this is great news.
The thing about Mumbai Indians is that although they lost their first three games, they were always in the hunt and could have won all of those games. They are a very good team and should be doing far better than what their current standing in the points table suggests.
Prediction: Mumbai Indians to win this match comfortably. No contest.
The Teams
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 Heinrich Klaasen, 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Jos Buttler(wk), 6 Rahul Tripathi, 7 Dhawal Kulkarni, 8 K Gowtham, 9 Shreyas Gopal, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 Ben Laughlin
Mumbai Indians: 1 Suryakumar Yadav, 2 Evin Lewis, 3 Rohit Sharma (capt), 4 Ishan Kishan (wk), 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Mitchell McClenaghan 9 Mayank Markande, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mustafizur Rahman
Watch Rajasthan Royals play Mumbai Indians tonight at 8 pm live on Star Sports!
