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Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals preview: It will be an interesting battle between the current top two teams in the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL) when Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) host Rajasthan Royals (RR) at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday. RR were the last unbeaten team in this year’s IPL but that changed after their three-wicket loss to Gujarat Titans on 10 April. RR, however, returned back to winning ways after they got the better of Punjab Kings (PBKS) by three wickets on Saturday.
KKR, too got their campaign off to a similar start with three wins in their first three games, before a seven-wicket loss to Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Chepauk. On Sunday, the two-time champions too returned to winning habits with an eight-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).
What makes KKR a formidable side is their top-order batting. Phil Salt (191) and Sunil Narine (167 runs) have been quite impressive for KKR whereas in the middle-order, another West Indian in Andre Russell (115) also has a couple of big knocks to his name. In the absence of Nitish Rana and Harshit Rana, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who announced his arrival with a fifty in his first IPL innings, and Vaibhav Arora (Six wickets in three games) have been a revelation.
Mitchell Starc, who endured a tough start to IPL 2024, seems to have regained his rhythm and is coming fresh off figures of 3/28 against LSG a couple of days back.
For RR, Riyan Parag has been their biggest positive. Parag has scored three fifties this season and is currently the second highest run-getter of this IPL with 284 runs.
What would concern RR is Yashasvi Jaiswal’s form. Jaiswal began IPL 2024 with scores of 24, 5, 10 and 0, but against PBKS, Jaiswal seemed to have found some sort of momentum with a 28-ball 39 that included four fours, but the young opener would hope he strikes even better on Tuesday.
Jos Buttler and R Ashwin had missed RR’s game against PBKS due to niggle but RR would hope that both are fit enough to face KKR on Tuesday.
Squads
KKR: Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Shreyas Iyer (C), Jason Roy, Sunil Narine, Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, KS Bharat, Chetan Sakariya, Mitchell Starc, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Ramandeep Singh, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey
RR: Sanju Samson (C), Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna, Navdeep Saini, Avesh Khan (Traded from LSG), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kuldeep Sen, Sandeep Sharma, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Kunal Singh Rathore, Jos Buttler, Trent Boult, Shimron Hetmyer, Donovan Ferreira, Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Abid Mushtaq, Nandre Burger