GUWAHATI: Despite the forecast of rain through the weekend, there were only scattered showers here till Saturday evening. Fans in Guwahati will be hoping the rain stays for another day so they can come in numbers for Sunday’s clash between ‘hosts’ RR and toppers KKR.
Although it’s an encounter between two top sides of the league, the game has certainly lost sheen as the Knights are already ensured of a top-of-table finish with 19 points from 13 games.
As for Royals, they will know how much is at stake before taking the field in the last game of the league stage.
The Sanju Samson-led team, which was poised to finish the league stage as the No. 1 side for most part of the season, has hit a roadblock with four consecutive defeats.
Before going into the all-important playoffs, they will thus be desperate to snap the losing streak in front of a ‘home’ crowd, a sizeable part of which might show their allegiance to KKR because of the strong Bengali population here.
The RR top order of
Jos Buttler
, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Samson and home boy
Riyan Parag
have been on song this season, meaning the lower middle order has remained untested. They also haven’t scored more than 150 in their last four games. Add to this the departure of opener Buttler before the last match.
Buttler’s replacement Tom Kohler-Cadmore, playing his first game of the season against PBKS, struggled to get going with a 23-ball 18. But it will be unrealistic to expect that he will step into Buttler’s shoes easily so late in the tournament.
The Gautam Gambhir-mentored Knights, meanwhile, are reaping the benefits of playing as a unit. They will, however, have to fix their opening pair after Phil Salt’s departure for national duty. Afghan wicketkeeper-batter
Rahmanullah Gurbaz
is likely to be the replacement, but he will get little time to hit top form.
The Knights might be a little rusty, having not played for a week since the washout against Titans.
English (US) ·