What

Match 21 of VIVO IPL 2019 will see the Rajasthan Royals come up against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Both teams are coming into this match at the back of wins against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The Royals have had a four-day break since registering their first win of the season. After the leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal strangled RCB with a three-wicket burst, the Rajasthan Royals were pretty clinical in chasing down the target of 159. The Royals will lose several of its World Cup bound overseas players at some stage and therefore need to secure their playoff spot before the exodus hits them. They play 4 of their next 6 matches at home, and given their outstanding record at the ‘fortress’, this might be a good time for them to stitch together a series of wins.

The Kolkata Knight Riders must be pumped up after registering their highest run-chase in the previous match. KKR, given a target of 206, were faced with an unlikely equation of having to score 67 from 26 balls. But Andre Russell, in the kind of form he is in, took KKR to a famous winwith a stunning assault on the RCB bowlers.

The Knight Riders now have three wins from four matches – their only loss was to Delhi Capitals in the Super Over. KKR have one win from their two away matches, and they will look at piling on at least one more win in their next two matches (both away) which will keep them in good stead heading to a series of three consecutive matches at home.

When

7 April 2019, 8pm IST

Where

Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur

Previous Match XIs:

Rajasthan Royals:Ajinkya Rahane, Jos Buttler, Steve Smith, Rahul Tripathi, Ben Stokes, Stuart Binny, K Gowtham, Jofra Archer, Shreyas Gopal, Varun Aaron, Dhawl Kulkarni.

Kolkata Knight Riders:Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, RobbieUthappa, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik, Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Prasidh Krishna.

Protagonists

Jos Buttleradmitted that he was briefly ‘distracted’ after his controversial run out against Kings XI Punjab. After scores of 5 and 6 in the next two matches, the Rajasthan Royals opener was back to his run-scoring ways in the previous match against RCB; he scored a fluent half-century that laid the platform for the run-chase. It augurs well for the Rajasthan Royals that Buttler is now ‘relaxed’. Steve Smith looked good during his 31-ball 38 in the run-chase against RCB, and there will expectations of him to finish off matches.

In four innings this season, Andre Russell has redefined ‘finishing. The Jamaican has scored 87% of his 207 runs this season through boundaries and has found the boundary every second ball on an average.

Russell’s end-innings-fireworks have denied Robbie Uthappa and Nitish Ranadeserved appreciation for their performance so far this season. Robbie has batted fluently and accumulated 146 runs at a fair strike-rate of 135.18, while the southpaw Rana is KKR’s second-highest run-getter this season with 169 runs.

Head to Head in Indian Premier League

Overall: Matches – 18,Rajasthan Royals – 9, Kolkata Knight Riders – 9.

Trivia

Buttler has scored half-centuries in his last four IPL matches at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.

Andre Russell is the top six-hitter in T20 matches in 2019; he has hit 53 sixes in 21 innings this year.