IPL 2021 RR vs KKR Match 18 Preview

image: HotStar

Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders will play against each other in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. This is the penultimate match of the Indian Premier League season in this stadium. The match is going to start at 7:30 PM today.

Till now, both the teams played four matches each and won a match each. Rajasthan won the match against the Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders won the match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. In the remaining matches, both the teams lost few matches with a close margin.

Rajasthan Royals

This team lost their best opener, Ben Stokes, due to a finger injury, Jos Buttler is replacing him as the opener. Jofra Archer is ruled out from IPL as his hand is injured while cleaning a fish tank in his house during his own free time.

In the last match, when the openers lost their wickets early, the middle order and lower middle-order batsmen fought a good fight and scored 177 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore. This is a good sign for the team, but, they are not using this for their advantage in the games.

Jaydev Unadkat took 3 wickets in the powerplay against Chennai Super Kings and the debutant Chetan Sakaryia is also taking the wickets. Those bowlers are not taking the wickets when the team needs it the most.

The captain made a tough call not to take that single against the Punjab Kings in the last over. In the next match, Chris Moriss won the match for the team against the Delhi Capitals by hitting sixes while chasing.

The team needs some luck and a good turn of events to win today's match against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Rajasthan Royals Squad

Probable Playing 11

 1 Jos Buttler (wk), 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal/Anuj Rawat, 3 Sanju Samson (capt & wk), 4 Shivam Dube, 5 David Miller, 6 Riyan Parag, 7 Rahul Tewatia, 8 Chris Morris, 9 Jaydev Unadkat, 10 Chetan Sakariya, 11 Mustafizur Rahman/Andrew Tye

Kolkata Knight Riders

This team has the strongest openers compared to the Rajasthan Royals. Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill are my choices of opening pair compared to inconsistent RR openers Jos Buttler and Manan Vohra.

Both the team openers have lost their wickets either in the powerplay or in the next over to the pacers. And the batsman at the 3rd position in the batting line up seems to find it difficult to settle in that pressure as a result of losing the wicket early.

This team also works hard and puts all the effort into winning the game but bad luck ad some wrong decisions pulling them away from the victories.

Today's match is going to be a wonderful chance for both teams to show their strengths and bounce back and show that they are in the game.

The team that dominates from the start is going to win the match. Both the teams are failing to show that dominance in the matches that happened till now.

Kolkata Knight Riders Squad

Probable Playing 11

1 Nitish Rana, 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Rahul Tripathi, 4 Sunil Narine, 5 Eoin Morgan (capt), 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Andre Russell, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Kamlesh Nagarkoti/Shivam Mavi, 10 Varun Chakravarthy, 11 Prasidh Krishna