Outmuscled in their previous matches, title-holders Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals will eye a quick course correction in every aspect when they face each other in an IPL match in Guwahati on Wednesday.
The Knight Riders were beaten by seven wickets by Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the tournament opener while the Royals were given a 44-run drubbing by Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The common theme in those defeats was how the seemingly powerful batting and bowling units of KKR and RR failed to fire.
While the Rajasthan outfit might offer the excuse of playing on a Hyderabad shirtfront for the malfunction of their bowling unit, the Kolkata side do not have any such cover.
Apart from Sunil Narine, none of the KKR bowlers were able to contain free-flowing RCB batters, and in that the demystification of mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy might just worry them a bit.
Even on an Eden Gardens pitch that had some grip, Chakravarthy was given a towelling by Phil Salt and Virat Kohli.
The KKR camp now hopes that the spinner will find his stride on a Guwahati pitch that generally has some bite.
They will also keep an eye on the fitness of Anrich Nortje, who is recovering from a back strain. If the South African gets a green signal from the physios, then he will walk in for Spencer Johnson.
Similarly, KKR’s middle-order batting crumbled spectacularly after skipper Ajinkya Rahane and Narine gave them a blistering start, eventually settling for a sub-par score.
Their batting pivots such as Venkatesh Iyer and Andre Russell got out, playing pre-determined cross-batted shots, and KKR will hope that they will show more game awareness in Guwahati.
The Knight Riders will also hope that Rinku Singh regains his hitting prowess down the order. It is crucial in converting a good total into something more intimidating in nature.
His recent T20 form is not that encouraging and in his last five international outings, Rinku has logged scores of 11, 9, 8, 30 and 9 along with a 12 in the IPL opener.
Rinku and his top-order colleagues in KKR will hope that the Rajasthan bowlers will once again struggle to find their groove in Guwahati.
The likes of Jofra Archer, who bowled the most expensive spell in the history of IPL against SRH, Fazalhaq Farooqi and Maheesh Theekshana were rudderless against the onslaught of Travis Head and Ishan Kishan. Archer had leaked 76 runs from his overs at the Uppal.
But they have an opportunity in Guwahati to regain their form.
It will also be a blot on stand-in skipper Riyan Parag who, at times, looked perplexed on the field about the decisions to be made.
The Rahul Dravid-coached side will eye sharper and more intuitive leadership from Parag against KKR.
Teams (from):
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Rinku Singh, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Luvnity Sisodia, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Mooen Ali, Ramandeep Singh, Andre Russell, Anrich Nortje, Vaibhav Arora, Mayank Markhande, Spencer Johnson, Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, Chetan Sakariya.
Rajasthan Royals: Riyan Parag (stand-in captain), Sanju Samson, Shubham Dubey, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Kunal Rathore, Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Rana, Yudhvir Singh, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Wanindu Hasaranga, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya Singh, Tushar Deshpande, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kwena Maphaka, Ashok Sharma, Sandeep Sharma.
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