Rajasthan Royals will aim for a much-needed victory when they host the formidable Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League on Thursday.
While a lot of the talk this season has centered around Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore being unable to achieve a single win, Rajasthan Royals’ performance hasn’t been far better.
Rajasthan are currently lying in the second-last position in the eight-team standings with just one win out of five games. Their sole win came against, of course, RCB at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. On Thursday, the men in pink would be banking on home comfort to upset defending champions CSK.
In contrast, Chennai are coming off a clinical seven-wicket thrashing of Kolkata Knight Riders and are sitting pretty at the top of the table with five victories from six games.
Under the astute captaincy of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, CSK boasts of a perfectly balanced squad to excel on most surfaces and all conditions. But this marks a crucial phase for the defending champions who start a four-match away leg, eyeing wins outside the comforts of their fortress in Chepauk.
RR struggle to seize key moments
The Royals, on the other hand, are still struggling to find their bearings. After losing their last match, they find themselves in a precarious position, and have to win almost all their remaining games to keep their playoff chances alive.
Rajasthan have failed to seize opportunities in their earlier matches and in the previous outing against KKR, they were totally outplayed on home turf.
Sanju Samson, who had cracked the first ton of this IPL, is still recovering from an injury and after a bright start to the season, Jos Butler too has failed in the last couple of innings.
The biggest positive for Rajasthan will be the return to form of former Australian captain Steve Smith. Smith scored 38 against RCB before anchoring his team to 139 with an unbeaten 73 against KKR.
Skipper Ajinkya Rahane, Rahul Tripathi and Ben Stokes too have been below par with the bat. To add to their woes, Rajasthan don’t have the depth and bench strength to overcome the tough situation.
Rajasthan’s bowling, too, appears to be lacking in ideas and the likes of Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jaydev Unadkat, and Dhawal Kulkarni will have to pull up their socks against an in-form CSK.
Rahane remains confident
However, captain Rahane feels there is no need to hit the panic button yet. “I think there’s no need for us to panic yet. Out of the five matches that we played, we lost badly in just one game. We played well in our last four matches, out of which we could have won three. It’s not too late for us,” he had said after the loss against KKR.
CSK, on the other hand, will be brimming with confidence having defeated the Royals earlier in the season, when Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 75 to clinch an eight-run victory. Their batting looks solid with Shane Watson and Fau Du Plessis at the top but the middle-order comprising of Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jhadav would look to add more runs. On more than one occasion, Dhoni has bailed that middle order out.
CSK’s bowing unit, which has an impressive mix of pace and spin, will look to exploit the Sawai Mansingh wicket, which has been playing slow and low.
Head to Head in IPL
Overall matches: 20
Won by Rajasthan Royals: 7
Won by Chennai Super Kings: 13
Squads
Rajasthan Royals: Ajinkya Rahane (C), Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Ashton Turner, Ish Sodhi, Oshane Thomas, Liam Livingstone, Sanju Samson, Shubham Ranjane, Stuart Binny, Shreyas Gopal, Sudhesan Midhun, Jaydev Unadkat, Prashant Chopra, Mahipal Lomror, Aryaman Birla, Riyan Parag, Dhawal Kulkarni, Krishnappa Gowtham, Varun Aaron, Shashank Singh, Manan Vohra, Rahul Tripathi.
Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (C), Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Murali Vijay, Kedar Jadhav, Sam Billings, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Shorey, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Rituraj Gaikwad, Dwayne Bravo, Karn Sharma, Imran Tahir, Harbhajan Singh, Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Mohit Sharma, KM Asif, Deepak Chahar, N Jagadeesan, Scott Kuggeleign.
[Inputs from PTI and iplT20.com]
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