Preview RR vs KKR IPL 2021, Match 17, April 24th, Wankhede Stadium. RR vs KKR head to head player stats and records. Team news and match predictions for RR vs KKR.
Key match stats RR vs KKR preview
Venue Stats – Wankhede Stadium
- Average first innings: 167
- Average first innings winning score: 175
- Average powerplay score: 46
- All-time win % batting 1st vs batting 2nd: 47% / 52%
Find full venue stats and records here
Team form RR vs KKR preview
- RR – LLWL
- KKR – LLLW
- Previous meetings: IPL 2020, KKR won by 37 runs, KKR won by 60 runs
IPL 2021 RR vs KKR preview
With every IPL team having played 4 matches we can be confident when writing these previews of which direction certain teams are heading in and unfortunately for RR and KKR it appears to be towards the bottom half of the table.
Rajasthan have just 48 hours to pick themselves up and dust themselves down following the 10 wicket mauling that was handed out to them by RCB. That match really did look like a case of men vs boys at times and it’s difficult to see how the Royals will be able to recover in order to push higher up the table. Indeed, from what we’ve seen so far in IPL 2021 it does very much look like the top 3 from last year will be battling it out at the summit of the table while everyone else scraps for 4th. In that regard, this is a must win match for both RR and KKR.
KKR too find themselves with just a single victory from their opening 4 games of IPL 2021. You might say that they’ve played well enough in a couple more games to deserve a greater points tally and of course 2 of their defeats have come against those top 3 sides so they’ve every chance of turning things around if they can find some form against the chasing pack.
It was a superb rearguard against CSK that almost pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in IPL history earlier in the week but the fact that KKR got themselves into such a dire position is probably the fact that is worth focusing more on. They were shambolic in the field at times, giving up at least 20 easy runs to their opponents and then of course their top order came out and played like headless chickens. Most worrying of all was some of the body language from the KKR players suggested that all is not right in the camp. They need to come out fast in this fixture and put a poor RR side in their place if they are to have any chance of making 4th place.
RR vs KKR head to head player stats
RR bowling vs KKR batting head to head
A few of the Royals bowlers have been punching above their weight recently particularly on the batsmen friendly surfaces of the Wankhede Stadium and you felt that it was only a matter of time before that lack of penetration in their attack was exposed to its fullest extent.
KKR started with a few of their top order in very good form and in their most recent match we finally saw some of their power hitters come to the party. The question now is, can they put together a complete batting display to blow this RR side out of the water?
Chris Morris has a good head to head record against the kind of players that you’d expect him to have good stats against, namely late order hitters and left handed batsmen so he might well be key to stopping the likes of Nitish Rana (he’s dimissed him twice in previous IPL encounters) as well as Dre Russell and Dinesh Karthik who both found form against CSK.
KKR handed out a couple of convincing wins against RR last season with only Jofra Archer standing in the way of even heavier defeats. With him out of the picture, their must be a few KKR batsmen licking their lips at the prospect of facing this Royals attack with one man in particular, captain Eoin Morgan, in desperate need of runs. The good news for Morgan is that his head to head record vs RR is very good, with the Irishman carrying his bat in both fixtures in IPL 2020.
It goes without saying that when your side has lost 3 on the bounce and your personal form is poor, that you will come under some pressure as the skipper. Add to that, the slack play of KKR in general against CSK as noted above and Morgan really needs to start leading from the front.
KKR bowling vs RR batting
Another KKR man who also enjoyed himself against RR last season, with Pat Cummins ripping through the Royals bowling line-up on his way to 4 for 34 the last time these 2 sides met. There is a real fragility to this RR batting line-up at the moment and you fear that if the don’t front up to the Aussie and his colleagues early on then a few bowlers might fancy boosting their stats in this fixture.
As usual the key match-up will be against Sanju Samson. Samson seems like a lovely guy, always smiling and positive but if his side keeps getting beaten off the park and he continues to fail at number 3 then it might be difficult to maintain that smile across the span of what could be a long season. Sunil Narine played his first match of IPL 2021 in KKR’s last outing and was arguably their best bowler. His head to head record vs Samson is also impressive.
Another Englishman in need of finding some form is Jos Buttler who just seems to have lost his way a little in white ball cricket over the last few months. A brilliant piece of bowling from Ravi Jadeja ended what might have been a match winning innings against CSK but aside from that the right hander has looked a bit fidgety at the top of the order. His stats against KKR are pretty decent with the below graphic showing his head to head record vs all bowlers used by KKR in IPL 2021.
All IPL player head to head records can be found here
