Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab only played each other last Sunday. A match won by KL Rahul’s brilliant 84 off 54 balls. So the defeat is very fresh in the Royals memory, especially so because they now have absolutely no chance of making it to the playoffs.
It has been a disastrous season for a team like Rajasthan Royals which has Shane Warne at the helm of affairs. They have overseas stars like Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, D’Arcy Short and Jofra Archer and have ended at the bottom f the IPL 2018.
They have decent Indian players too, such as Ajinkya Rahane, Jaydev Unadkat and Sanju Samson. Samson has done well, Rahane has at least tried and Unadkat – the $2 million man, has been a disaster.
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So many of the Royals players have suffered from irrevocable loss to their reputation, and it’s unlikely that they are ever going to be the same again.
Especially Unadkat – we can’t see him being taken seriously ever again. The man has been reduced to a joke on Twitter. One of the jokes is that the Royals thought they purchased a BMW but got a rickshaw or tuk-tuk instead!
A guy gets paid $2 million for bowling tepid medium pace, who cannot take wickets and can’t stop runs. What were the Royals thinking when they paid so much for him?
But what have Stokes and Short, the other two expensive buys done? Absolutely nothing. Stokes, considered to be the world’s best all-rounder, has only taken 1 wicket and not even hit a 50 in this IPL.
As for Kings XI, they are in a happy place although, truth be told, they only depend on 2 or 3 players – Chris Gayle and KL Rahul for batting and the young Afghan spin bowler Mujeeb for bowling.
- Ashwin, the captain, has led well, but his bowling has been mediocre. When Gayle plays well, they can beat anyone. But take Gayle and Rahul out early and this team won’t do much.
The Teams
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Jos Buttler (wk), 2 D’Arcy Short, 3 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 4 Sanju Samson, 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Rahul Tripathi, 7 Stuart Binny, 8 K Gowtham, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Shreyas Gopal, 11 Jaydev Unadkat
Kings XI Punjab: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Mayank Agarwal, 4 Yuvraj Singh/Manoj Tiwary, 5 Karun Nair, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 R Ashwin (capt), 9 Andrew Tye, 10 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 11 Ankit Rajpoot
Watch Rajasthan Royals play Kings XI Punjab tonight at 8 pm live on Star Sports!
