IPL 2018 Fantasy Guru: What your team should look like for RR vs KKR
Subs used – 2; Subs remaining - 57
AB de Villiers out – Sunil Narine in
Quinton de Kock out – Sanju Samson in
(Uncapped) Suryakumar Yadav out – Rahul Tripathi in
Uncapped preference order – Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Shreyas Gopal, K Gowtham, Shivam Mavi
Captain – Andre Russell (if Jofra Archer does not play)/ Robin Uthappa or Sanju Samson (If Jofra Archer plays)
Differential - Chris Lynn
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Guru’s team ahead of RR vs KKR: R Tripathi, S Samson, R Uthappa, N Rana, KL Rahul, V Kohli, S Narine, A Russell, B Stokes, M Markande, S Kaul
With Robin Uthappa, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana and Ben Stokes already in my team, the other players who are worth looking at for this match are Sanju Samson, Sunil Narine, and Kuldeep Yadav.
As I had predicted in the last Rajasthan Royals piece, Samson did turn out to be the differential against Royal Challengers Bangalore. I couldn’t, however, make use of it, as I was stuck with Uthappa instead to play the role of the differential player. While I can’t keep Samson out anymore for obvious reasons, I haven’t lost hope on Uthappa as well.
Uthappa has looked good, getting off to a couple of great starts, but it is just that he hasn’t managed to convert any of them into a big score. With two average bowling attacks lined up for Kolkata Knight Riders next, there is every chance that he can correct the record.
Rajasthan Royals are the least equipped to handle Narine this year. Even their best Indian batsmen – Ajinkya Rahane and Sanju Samson – have poor records against him, and leaving him out could turn out to be a blunder.
While in the absence of Jofra Archer, Royals may not have the pace to trouble Narine the batsman, the clever variations in the pace of Jaydev Unadkat and Ben Laughlin could just do the trick, which is why it is difficult to predict which way his batting might go today.
Kuldeep will always be a steady contributor, courtesy of his unique bowling style – left-arm wrist spin. But bigger scoring options have opened up of late in this year’s competition, and hence I don’t see locking a spot with a specialist non-death bowler being a wise move.
Nitish Rana is the standout among uncapped fantasy picks. He is destructive vs spin, bats higher up and has just about enough to handle pace. KKR batsmen play spin well, which will reduce the impact of Shreyas Gopal and K Gowtham, while Rahul Tripathi and Shubman Gill bat too low for my liking.
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