Rain in Raipur can be stubborn, and it pushed Wednesday night’s start back by 75 minutes, yet Rajat Patidar’s mind was clear when the coin came down. “Bowling first felt the obvious call,” the Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper said on the broadcast, pointing to the surface that had nipped and bounced against Mumbai two evenings earlier. New pitch, same square, and, in his words, “not a lot of mystery”.
Patidar’s side defended 149 in that last-over thriller; this time he adds another seamer, New Zealand’s Jacob Duffy, at the expense of leg-spinner Suyash Sharma. With the overseas slots reshuffled, Romario Shepherd sits out and Venkatesh Iyer – facing the franchise that first gave him a break – comes straight in. “Nice to be back in red, even if it’s against old mates,” Iyer smiled.
Kolkata Knight Riders have injury problems of their own. Varun Chakravarthy’s sore foot keeps him in the dug-out, so left-arm quick Saurabh Dubey, signed as cover for Akash Deep, receives a first IPL cap. Captain Ajinkya Rahane said, “We wanted an extra yard of pace tonight; Saurabh offers that.” Dubey starts on the Impact bench, the plan being to unleash him if there is still movement under the lights.
Table maths is straightforward. Victory lifts RCB above Gujarat Titans on net run-rate; if KKR pinch the points they jump from eighth to seventh, only two behind fourth-placed Punjab Kings. “The middle of the table is tight and a bit ugly,” former India bowler Snehal Pradhan noted on commentary. “One good evening can change a fortnight.”
Teams
Kolkata Knight Riders: Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane (capt), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Cameron Green, Rinku Singh, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Anukul Roy, Kartik Tyagi, Vaibhav Arora.
Impact bench: Saurabh Dubey, Ramandeep Singh, Tejasvi Singh, Navdeep Saini, Tim Seifert.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Jacob Bethell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (capt), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Krunal Pandya, Tim David, Venkatesh Iyer, Rasikh Salam, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Jacob Duffy.
Impact bench: Devdutt Padikkal, Jordan Cox, Mangesh Yadav, Swapnil Singh, Romario Shepherd.
Pitch and conditions
The square in Raipur produced seam off the top and the odd ball that stopped on batters. Josh Hazlewood, who took 3 for 18 on Sunday, said earlier in the day, “It’s not exactly Brisbane fast but there’s enough in it if you hit the hard length.” Patidar is banking on a repeat; Rahane is gambling on early swing fading, leaving Narine and Green to boss the chase.
Either way, a damp outfield, a tacky surface and two rejigged attacks promise another match that may never quite settle.
