Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings are two teams that have made a comeback into the IPL. It can be stated now that Royals have disappointed while CSK have done fairly well.
CSK have certainly benefited from MS Dhoni’s return to top form. Dhoni has been playing like the Dhoni we have always known and loved. He is batting with such brutal power that it reminds of the time he first made his entry into international cricket.
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Dhoni has probably been reinvigorated by Dinesh Karthik’s performances in recent times. For the first time in his career, he has serious competition for the wicket-keeping slot in the Indian team, and he is reacting to that only in a way he can – by destroying bowlers in the IPL.
CSK has an ageing group of players, but most of them are in good form. They are all playing well. Ambati Rayudu, by no means a young man, has finally entered the center-stage. He has batted superbly for CSK and has been their most important batsman in the Indian Premier League 2018.
The Rajasthan Royals on the other hand have disappointed. We have written enough about Jaydev Unadkat and why buying him for $2 million will go down as the worst decision made by any team in IPL history.
But it’s not fair to blame just Unadkat. The poor guy at least tries, but is not good enough. The likes of Ben Stokes, captain Ajinkya Rahane, Short D’Arcy and others have been equally poor.
It’s hard to tell why, but Rajasthan Royals have been a huge disappointment.
For this game, we expect seamer Deepak Chahar, who was suffering from a hamstring injury to come back.
The Teams
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Stuart Binny, 6 K Gowtham, 7 Mahipal Lomror, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Jaydev Unadkat, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Anureet Singh
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Ambati Rayudu, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Dhruv Shorey, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 David Willey, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Shardul Thakur
Watch Rajasthan Royals play Chennai Super Kings tonight at 8 pm on Star Sports!
