IPL 2013 Preview: Rajasthan Royals would want to leave ‘Slapgate’ behind hosting Kings XI Punjab

After being crushed by the Chennai Super Kings by 10 wickets in their first home game of IPL 6, Kings XI Punjab head out to Jaipur for their third match against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday.

S Sreesanth, who dominated the headlines recently after reopening the Slapgate chapter, would be interesting to see if he keeps his place in the side © IANS

By Jaideep Vaidya
 
Jaipur: Apr 13, 2013
 
After being crushed by the Chennai Super Kings by 10 wickets in their first home game of IPL 6, Kings XI Punjab head out to Jaipur for their third match against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday.
 
Nothing quite went right for Punjab at Mohali; their batting, loaded with big hitters, failed to boom, save David Hussey and Gurkeerat Singh Mann, and their bowlers could not even take one wicket off Chennai defending 138.
 
Skipper Adam Gilchrist put it down to an off-day his team had and that was probably the case. With players like Mandeep Singh, David Hussey and Manan Vohra within their ranks, Punjab wouldn’t be too worried and would only hope such off-days are a rarity.
 
It is their bowling which seems like the weak link as they do not have a genuine wicket-taking bowler in their ranks. Yes, they did reduce the Pune Warriors to 99 for nine in their first game, but that was more due to one of Pune’s own off-days. A lot would be expected of Ryan Harris and Azhar Mahmood, who have looked like the most likely bowlers to take wickets so far.
 
Rajasthan, meanwhile, would look to shake off their defeat to the Pune Warriors in their last match following two successive wins prior to that. None of their batsmen managed to convert starts at Pune, save skipper Rahul Dravid who already has two fifties in the tournament and looks in fine touch. Ajinkya Rahane has a couple of thirties and a 28 to his name and would like to convert that into at least a 60-70 at the top of the order. Kusal Perera has also flopped in the two matches he has played so far, and could make way for Shane Watson.
 
As for the bowling, young Harmeet Singh was clobbered all over the park by Pune and would do well to get another game. With S Sreesanth dominating the headlines recently after reopening the ‘Slapgate’ chapter, it would be interesting to see if he keeps his place in the side. The Kerala pacer is infamous for letting his emotions get the better of him while playing and the Royals could do without that, although they don’t have many options in this department. Coincidentally, Sreesanth would, if selected, be playing the team he was then part of when the incident occurred in 2008.
 
Both teams, at the time of writing, lie in the bottom half of the table and would like to boost their ranks, albeit Punjab have played just two games so far. From the line-ups, it does seem like batting would be the key in the match. Whichever team bats better should take the two points, given both bowling line-ups lack enough fire power.
 

Teams:
 
Rajasthan Royals (Probable): Shane Watson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rahul Dravid (c), Stuart Binny, Brad Hodge, Kevon Cooper, Dishant Yagnik (wk), James Faulkner, S Sreesanth, Siddharth Trivedi, Rahul Shukla, Harmeet Singh.
 
Kings XI Punjab (Probable): Adam Gilchrist (c & wk), Mandeep Singh, Manan Vohra, David Hussey, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Azhar Mahmood, Rajagopal Sathish, Piyush Chawla, Ryan Harris, Praveen Kumar, Parvinder Awana.
 
Time: 20.00 IST | 15.30 GMT

(JaideepVaidya is a multiple sports buff and a writer at CricketCountry. He has a B.E. in Electronics Engineering, but that isn’t fooling anybody. He started writing on sports during his engineering course and fell in love with it. The best day of his life came on April 24, 1998, when he witnessed birthday boy Sachin Tendulkar pummel a Shane Warne-speared Aussie attack from the stands during the Sharjah Cup Final. A diehard Manchester United fan, you can follow him on Twitter @jaideepvaidya. He also writes a sports blog – The Mullygrubber )

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