After facing each other just the other night, Rajasthan Royals will now be hosting the run-away team of the Tournament, Kings XI Punjab. The 40th match of the IPL will be played at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur. Of the four matches that RR have played so far at the home, they have won two and lost two. Now they face the tough challenge of the Punjabis. Here is how the probable Playing XI of both the teams shape up

Rajasthan Royals

The returning team to the IPL 2018 has been hot and cold. They just look very unsure as to how their day will be and the always exude a feeling being unsure. They are the classic mid-table team which is hard to predict. They tried hard against KXIP the other night but KL took the match away from them.

Rajasthan Royals batted first against Punjab and with only Buttler, Samson and Gopal adding the runs, they eventually posted only 152 runs. KL Rahul opened the batting and stayed at the crease till the end to ensure a win for KXIP. RR bowling looked unimpressive at the end.

Rajasthan Royals dropped Dhawal Kulkarni and brought in Anureet Singh, he did decent enough to save his place. RR is likely to continue with the playing XI unless they restructure the outlook.

Playing XI

Ajinkya Rahane (c), Anureet Singh, Jos Buttler (wk), Jaydev Unadkat, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson, Krishnappa Gowtham, Rahul Tripathi/Stuart Binny, Shreyas Gopal, D Arcy Short, Jofra Archer

 

Kings XI Punjab

The team has surprised everyone this season and is already a firm favorite to enter the playoffs. They had a week-long break from the IPL only to return with a loss. Playing at Indore, their new home ground, they started with a loss but won the last match against Rajasthan Royals.

Punjab played their last match also against Rajasthan Royals and won it handsomely. Their spinners bowled brilliantly and the fast bowlers supported them. Mujeeb was the pick of the bowlers. Later KL with his magnificent 84* sealed the win.

KXIP went unchanged in the last match. They don’t have any reasons to make changes for this match. Their only worry will be Mayank’s poor form but they do not have anyone to replace him. Also, Axar may be dropped for Sran with Jaipur being a faster track but that is unlikely to happen.

Playing XI –

Chris Gayle, Manoj Tiwary, Ravichandran Ashwin (c), Marcus Stoinis, Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair, Lokesh Rahul (wk), Ankit Rajpoot, Barinder Sran/Axar Patel, Andrew Tye, Mujeeb Ur Rahman