In the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 clash on Wednesday between Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan have gone with Sri Lanka allrounder Wanindu Hasaranga Afghanistan left-arm pacer Fazalhaq Farooqi in their playing XI.
Rajasthan were humiliated in their opening clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) as their bowling was taken to the cleaners and conceded a total of 286/6 in 20 overs. Their lack of spin options have led them to bring in the Sri Lankan legspinner who was great for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2022 and 2023 with 35 wickets from 24 games.
In the first game against SRH, all RR bowlers went for runs with the pace quartet of Farooqi, Jofra Archer, Tushar Deshpande and Sandeep Sharma conceding a total of 220 runs. Maheesh Theekshana, who went for 52 runs from his four overs, managed to pick two wickets while part-timer Nitish Rana bowled a single over and gave away nine runs.
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The plan to go with four frontline pacers has definitely backfired and prompted head coach Rahul Dravid and captain Sanju Samson to go with another spinner and Hasaranga being a wrist-spinner looks like the obvious option.
Even though they have been asked to bat first by KKR captain Ajinkya Rahane, RR spinners will not worry too much about the dew factor later in the second innings as the IPL’s new rule allows them to choose a drier ball after the first 11 overs.
Meanwhile for KKR, England allrounder Moeen Ali will be making his debut as he was picked in the playing XI ahead of franchise great Sunil Narine. In place of Narine, it is likely that Venkatesh Iyer or Ajinkya Rahane will open the innings with Angkrish Raghuvanshi.
Despite the key change to their line-up, Rajasthan’s bowling still looks out of sorts after the beating they took against SRH. One good thing is that if they bring in a hitter like Shubham Sharma as an Impact Player in the first innings for another dismissed batter, they can still keep their five-bowling options. But how they will perform against a fiery batting line-up like KKR will be interesting.
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