The 52nd game of the Indian Premier League will see the Rajasthan Royals play the Chennai Super Kings at the Sawai Man Singh stadium in Jaipur.
This home game for Rajasthan follows the match between the same sides, earlier this week that was played at Chepauk.
Rajasthan v Chennai odds:
The Rajasthan Royals (11/8 at
BetFred) have 11 points from 10 games as compared to the Chennai Super Kings’ 12 from 10. The Royals went down to the Super Kings in the previous game which helped the Super Kings get to 12 but this was followed by a loss at the hands of the Kolkata Knight Riders for the side from Chennai.
The Super Kings (4/6 at
Blue Square) will still be the favourites but will know that the Royals have not lost too many games at home since the inception of the IPL in 2008.
Ground and Pitch:
The track at Jaipur is usually slow and difficult for the hard-hitting batsmen. What the two teams will hope for is that it is not a repeat of the pitch that had seen Mumbai Indians collapse to 94 in the 20 overs. This will be a night game that may juice up the pitch a tad.
Player News:
Ross Taylor (9/2 at
Stan James) played a superb innings for the Rajasthan Royals against the Pune Warriors but one gets the sense that he is being wasted at the number five position. For all that Ashok Menaria (6/1 at
888Sport) has done in the tournament so far, his experience at batting higher up the order is much lower than that of Taylor and a swap between the two is required.
In the previous game, Shane Watson (11/4 at
BetFred) had also shown signs of returning back to form with his start before his dismissal was the start of a major capitulation that the side saw. The good news, though, for the Royals is that he seemed to have found the timing of old and a big one seems just around the corner.
The Super Kings collapsed to a poor 114 in the previous game against the Kolkata Knight Riders, thanks mainly due to the pitch, but also due to a poor start. There were no boundaries hit by either Murali Vijay (7/2 at
Blue Square) or Michael Hussey (11/ 4 at
BetFred) in the first six overs and a score of 40 in the first ten overs meant that the Super Kings were treading on thin ice.
It was too much of an ask from S Badrinath (13/2 at
Stan James) and Albie Morkel (12/1 at
Boylesports) to then get going with the acceleration in the end. Badrinath did get to his fourth half-century of the tournament but the side fell at least 20 runs short.
Prediction:
The Super Kings will be favourites to win this though beating the Royals is not going to be too easy.