Last year’s champions, Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Gujarat Titans (GT), will play each other in match 48 of the IPL 2023 on Friday, May 5, at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur.
In the last game of the season, Rajasthan lost by six wickets to the Mumbai Indians (MI), which was very sad. They couldn’t defend a big total of 213 runs.
Sanju Samson and his team are currently in fourth place in the points table, with five wins out of nine games. If they win the next competition, they will move closer to the top two.
In their previous match, Gujarat also lost. The team led by Hardik Pandya couldn’t catch up to the Delhi Capitals’ (DC) 131-run goal, and they lost the game by five runs.
However, the defending champions have become the team to beat. They are easily in first place because they have won six of their nine games. GT is the only team with 12 points at this time.
This will be the second time this season that these two sides play each other. GT and RR have already played against each other at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Rajasthan’s goal of 178 runs was hard to reach, but they did it in an exciting way and won by three wickets.
The next match between these two star-studded teams should also be a high-octane one. Here are three matchups that could have a big effect on the RR vs. GT game coming up:
Trent Boult vs. Shubman Gill:
Left-handed speed in a number of games in this year’s IPL, Trent Boult has given his team a big start with the new ball. The New Zealand bowler has taken 10 wickets in seven games.
Boult has taken seven wickets in the powerplay overs, and Shubman Gill, the first hitter for GT, will be most likely to fall to him.
So far, Gill has done the best job with the bat for his team. In nine games, he has scored 339 runs, which is an average of 37.66. He has scored more than 50 runs three times.
Yashasvi Jaiswal vs. Mohammed Shami:
RR’s first batsman, Yashasvi Jaiswal, has helped the team get off to a good start. The southpaw has helped his team get off to a great start by going up against the bowlers during the powerplay.
In his last match, when he scored 124 runs against Mumbai, the young player made news. Jaiswal has scored 428 runs in nine games, making him the second player with the most runs in the tournament.
But the daring batter will have a hard time this time because he will have to beat Mohammed Shami, who is GT’s best fast bowler.
Shami has been great for his team, especially when he has been given the new ball. In nine games, the experienced fast bowler has taken 17 wickets, 12 of which came in the powerplay. He also wears a purple cap. The battle between the two in-form players is sure to be exciting to watch, and it could also change the way the game goes.
Sanju Samson vs. Rashid Khan:
Sanju Samson, the captain of RR, got the event off to a good start. But the keeper-batsman hasn’t been doing as well lately, so he’ll be trying to make up for it by hitting a big one.
This season, Samson’s strategy against spin bowlers has been to strike back. Even though he has had some success with it, it has also led to failure on more than one occasion.
The last time these two teams played against each other, Samson beat GT’s best leg spinner, Rashid Khan. He hit three sixes off the tricky bowler and ended up with 60 runs in just 32 balls.
Rashid will want to get rid of Samson early this time so he can win the fight against him.
