CRICKET
Royals down pathetic Knight Riders
In the 18th match of IPL 2021, Rajasthan Royals were up against the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Royals won the match easily with 6 wickets in hand.
Kolkata has now lost 4 matches in their last 5 games and with only 2 points, they are now at bottom of the league table.
Royals won the toss and opted to bowl first at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.
Skipper Sanju Samson’s team were on fire as they managed to get the dangerous Shubman Gill early.
Kolkata Knight Riders were in trouble as they also lost their in-form batsman Nitish Rana.
He scored 22 runs off 25 balls with 1 six.
However, Rahul Tripathi played some classy shots as he was the top scorer for Knight Riders with 36 of 26 balls.
Eventually, they ended up at 133-9 in their 20 overs. This was another disappointing performance from the middle and lower order.
While, Rajasthan bowlers got the wickets at regular intervals. Chris Morris took top honours.
The South African pacer got 4 wickets with giving only 23 runs in their overs. Mustafizur Rehman and Jaydev Unadkat got 1 wicket each.
Royals were set to chase 134 runs in twenty overs.
English star Jos Buttler failed to score big runs again, making just 5 before getting out.
Thankfully, skipper Sanju Samson took responsibility and scored an unbeaten 42 runs in 41 balls with 1 six.
David Miller and Yashasvi Jaiswal also made decent contributions as Royals comfortably reached the target losing 4 wickets.
It was not the perfect day for the KKR bowlers.
Varun Chakravarthy got 2 wickets, but he was expensive.
Royals moved up to 6th place with a win.
Rajasthan Royals 134 for 4 (Samson 42*, Chakravarthy 2-32) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 133 for 9 (Tripathi 36, Morris 4-23) by six wickets
Preview: Royal Challengers versus Chennai Kings
It is the 19th match of the season with two top teams of the league facing each other in a blockbuster.
Two Indian legends Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni will lead their respective teams. RCB are on top of the league and yet to lose a match.
CSK have won their last 3 games in a row after losing the opening game.
The pitch at the Wankhede Stadium has been a batsman’s paradise and another high-scoring game seems to be on the cards.
Teams might opt to field first after winning the toss.
For the Challengers, Virat Kohli has more than impressive numbers against the Super Kings.
In 26 matches, Kohli has scored 887 runs at an average and strike rate of 42.24 and 127.26 respectively, with a top score of 90 not out.
He has showed good form in IPL 2021 too, scoring 143 runs at an average of 47.66.
However, the law of averages might go against Virat Kohli.
For the Chennai side, the big impact player has been Deepak Chahar.
Chahar is currently the leading wicket-taker for CSK in the tournament with eight wickets from four games at an economy rate of 7.33.
Against the Challengers, Chahar has picked up five wickets from 19 overs at an economy rate of 6.37.
In our opinion, Chennai Super Kings has an edge and could emerge as winners.