Ajinkya Rahane-led Rajasthan face litmus test against Chennai

Image Courtesy: IANS

Having continued their superb form at home, Chennai Super Kings will now head to the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur to take on the Rajasthan Royals in their Indian Premier League encounter on Thursday. On paper, CSK are favourites as they sit atop the points table, but then, this game is not played on paper.

Having lost their previous game at home against the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Royals led by Ajinkya Rahane will look to come back strongly in this encounter against MS Dhoni and boys.

But firstly, they need to get a hang of the wicket. Having dished out a slow one in the game against KKR, they found themselves in deep trouble and considering CSK`s love for slow turners, another slow wicket will play into the visitors` hands.

In the batting department as well, too much dependence on Jos Buttler and Rahane at the top needs to go. Even though Steve Smith played a quality knock in the KKR game, his innings was pretty slow and didn`t help the team. Similarly, someone like Ben Stokes needs to be used much higher in the batting order. Considering his destructive nature, he needs to be given enough balls to face.

For Chennai, the bowling is a bit of a worry in the absence of the injured Dwayne Bravo, but the others have combined well with Deepak Chahar showing great ability during Tuesday`s match against KKR. While Harbhajan Singh and Imran Tahir have been equally impressive, it is a problem of plenty for Captain Cool MS.

In the batting department as well, Chennai need Ambati Rayudu to fire. He has failed to recreate the form that saw him return to the national set-up after the 2018 edition of the IPL.

But the determination shown by Faf du Plessis at the top in their last game holds the team in good stead. All in all, the wicket dished out will play a big role in deciding who will hold the upper hand in this game.

Squads: 

Rajasthan Royals: Ajinkya Rahane, Jos Buttler, Steven Smith, Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Rahul Tripathi, Krishnappa Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Jofra Archer, Jaydev Unadkat, Dhawal Kulkarni, Stuart Binny, Ish Sodhi, Varun Aaron, Shashank Singh, Liam Livingstone, Shubham Ranjane, Ashton Turner, Riyan Parag, Mahipal Lomror, Oshane Thomas, Sudhesan Midhun, Aryaman Birla, Manan Vohra, Prashant Chopra

Chennai Super Kings: Ambati Rayudu, Shane Watson, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, Murali Vijay, Dhruv Shorey, Faf du Plessis, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Mitchell Santner, Sam Billings, N Jagadeesan, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Monu Kumar, Karn Sharma, KM Asif, Mohit Sharma