After losing to Gujarat Titans in Qualifier 1, the Sanju Samson-led Rajasthan Royals will face a stern challenge against Faf du Plessis’ formidable Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Qualifier 2 of the IPL 2022 at Narendra Modi Stadium, here on Friday.

Rajasthan have been a solid team in the ongoing IPL edition, which was very much evident during the league stage of the tournament as they finished at the second spot in the points table. However, Royals didn’t have a great outing against Gujarat in Qualifier 1, especially because their bowlers failed to deliver under the pressure situation. They now face RCB, who are peaking at the right time in the tournament.

The winner of Qualifier 2 will lock horns with Gujarat Titans in the final of the IPL 2022 in front of a huge crowd at Motera Stadium.

Bangalore needed some luck to qualify for the play-offs. However, once they went through, RCB showed their all-round strength against Lucknow in the Eliminator and have given their fans hope of winning the coveted IPL trophy.

RCB batting stars Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell couldn’t contribute much in the previous game and will be keen to play impactful knocks against RR.

On the other hand, Rajat Patidar who played a sensational match-winning knock against LSG, will be high on confidence and would be pumped up to repeat his batting heroics. Lower down the order, Dinesh Karthik has played his role of a pace hitter to near perfection and the team management would be also hoping for the same consistency in the upcoming game.

In the bowling department, the likes of Harshal Patel and Josh Hazlewood have done the job for RCB on most of the occasions and Mohammad Siraj’s good bowling in the LSG game make it an even more effective bowling line-up. On the other hand, Wanindu Hasaranga has shown courage despite being taken to the cleaners by batters.

On the other hand, Rajasthan batting line up is too much dependent on Jos Buttler and skipper Sanju Samson, who also scored against Gujarat in their previous game.

Batting at No 3 and No 4, Samson has got the starts but he will be keen to convert his 30s and 40s into a match-winning knock against RCB. On the other hand, Buttler will look to bring his experience and T20 expertise in use in the must-win game.

RR team management would also want batting contributions from the likes Devdutt Padikkal, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shimron Hetmyer and Riyan Parag, who haven’t been consistent with their runs.

Rajasthan bowling line-up consists of Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Obed McCoy, Prasidh Krishna had a forgettable day against Gujarat and it will be interesting to see how they made a comeback against RCB.

Squads:

Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson (captain), Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ravichandran Ashwin, Trent Boult, Shimron Hetmyer, Devdutt Padikkal, Prasidh Krishna, Yuzvendra Chahal, Riyan Parag, KC Cariappa, Navdeep Saini, Obed McCoy, Anunay Singh, Kuldeep Sen, Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel, Tejas Baroka, Kuldip Yadav, Shubham Garhwal, James Neesham, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Rassie van der Dussen, Daryl Mitchell, Corbin Bosch.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Faf du Plessis (captain), Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Mohammed Siraj, Harshal Patel, Wanindu Hasaranga, Dinesh Karthik, Josh Hazlewood, Shahbaz Ahmed, Anuj Rawat, Akash Deep, Mahipal Lomror, Finn Allen, Sherfane Rutherford, Jason Behrendorff, Suyash Prabhudesai, Chama Milind, Aneeshwar Gautam, Karn Sharma, David Willey, Rajat Patidar and Siddharth Kaul

(Inputs from IANS)