IPL 2021 is starting to reach the middle stages. We are now changing venues and moving to different places. Among all this, some teams have found their mojo some teams just haven’t. Such has been the story this year. The game we have is a tale of two teams looking for their revivals. The Rajasthan Royals will face the Kolkata Knight Riders in a game that promises to be an exciting one. This match will take place at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

Rajasthan Royals have just not been able to get going. They seem to have some serious issues with their powerplay batting and death bowling. They just seem to lose the plot very early in the game. Its often said that the result of a game is determined by how well you do in the small moments of the match. Rajasthan has clearly not been able to seize its chances at different stages of the game.\

Kolkata Knight Riders won their first match and it looked like they might be the team to watch out for this season, but that clearly has not been the case. Ever since that loss against the defending champions, they have lost all their games. It has not looked very good for them. Kolkata did have a few positives in the previous game and they will look to turn their fortunes against another team that is struggling.

Rajasthan Royals losing the plot in the powerplay

Rajasthan Royals start their innings very poorly. They lose way too many wickets in the first 6 overs which burdens their middle order. The middle-order is then forced to bat extremely cautiously. This causes them to end up with low scores. Shivam Dube and Rahul Tewatia were the bright spots in what looked like a below-par inning. Manan Vohra has failed to score runs and might be replaced by young Yashasvi Jaiswal. The team will want big hitter Jos Buttler to fire and get the team off to a flier.

Kolkata Knight Riders have to hope that their top order and middle order fire at the same time. In the previous game, they lost their top order very cheaply. Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell along with a superb inning from Pat Cummins tried their best to take the team home but it just turned out to be too much. KKR will want their batting to fire consistently. It is of utmost importance if they want to win the game. KKR would also want their captain Eoin Morgan to get a few runs. He has been out of form and will certainly want to be among the runs.

Death overs will be the key

In the previous game, Rajasthan was unable to pick up a wicket. RCB cruised away and won the game by 10 wickets. If RR really wants to get back to winning ways they have to tick their necessary boxes. It is really necessary for them to play as a unit and win the game. All their bowlers had an off game and will look to bounce back. Chris Morris is yet to prove his worth with the ball. They will want to bowl in the right areas and stop the run flow.

Kolkata Knight Riders ended up conceding 220 runs to CSK. Although it was a high scoring wicket the extra runs at the end cost them dearly. It is going to be their last game in Mumbai and they would certainly want to gain some momentum before going into the next game. Varun Chakravarthy was the standout bowler as he conceded just 27 runs and picked up 1 wicket in his 4 overs. The pitch at the Wankhede is expected to be a spin-friendly wicket and KKR will want their mystery spinner to fox the batsman the same way he has been doing it all this while.

Head to Head: Rajasthan Royals vs Kolkata Knight Riders

Played-23

KKR won-12

RR won-10

No Result-1

Weather and Pitch Report

The temperature is around 33 degrees Celsius. The precipitation chances are low and humidity will be around 61%. The pitch at Wankhede support batters with a little help to the bowlers on offer. The game is expected to be high-scoring. There might be something to offer for the spinners this time.

Team News

Kolkata Knight Riders- They are expected to play the same playing 11 despite their loss in the previous game

Rajasthan Royals- Yashasvi Jaiswal might get the nod ahead of Manan Vohra who has been failing continuously. Jofra Archer has been ruled out of the IPL.

Squads

Rajasthan Royals: Jos Buttler(wk), Manan Vohra, Sanju Samson (c, wk), Shivam Dube, David Miller, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Jaydev Unadkat, Chetan Sakariya, Mustafizur Rahman, Andrew Tye, Shreyas Gopal, KC Cariappa, Mahipal Lomror, Mayank Markande, Anuj Rawat, Kartik Tyagi, Kuldip Yadav, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Akash Singh.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Eoin Morgan (C), Shubman Gill, Dinesh Kartik, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Andre Russell, Shakib Al Hasan, Pat Cummins, Prashidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Ben Cutting, Lockie Ferguson, Sheldon Jackson, Harbhajan Singh, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Venkatesh Iyer, Vaibhav Arora, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Karun Nair, Sunil Narine, Pawan Negi, Sandeep Warrier, Tim Seifert, Shivam Mavi.