Key match stats
Pitch Stats – Sawai Mansingh Stadium
Average first innings score: 158
Average first innings winning score: 176
Average powerplay score: 45
Win % batting 1st vs batting 2nd: 30% / 69%
Team form RR vs LSG
RR: WWWLW
LSG: LWWLW
Recent meetings: IPL 2022 RR won by 22 runs, RR won by 3 runs
Preview RR vs LSG
Today's game sees the top 2 sides go head to head in a bid to strengthen their hold on at least a playoff place. We are now just over a third of the way through the round robin stage so it is worth having a look at the table to see how things are shaping up.
Unsurprisingly it's still very tight with Delhi Capitals the only side who have been cut adrift at this stage. However, a win here for Rajasthan on their return to the Sawai Mansingh Stadium would put them 4 points clear at the top of the league with 5 wins to date. It's worth bearing in mind that Gujarat Titans topped the table in IPL 2022 with 10 wins and I'd imagine that is what all the sides are aiming for to ensure they secure one of those top 2 spots and an easier route through to the final.
What a great win it was for the Royals in their game against Gujarat at the weekend. At 26 for 2 at the end of the powerplay, with the ball moving around and the dangerous Buttler and Jaiswal both back in the dugout, it looked very likely that Rajasthan would be slipping to a 4th defeat in a row against GT. However, a captain's innings from Sanju Samson and some brutal hitting from Shimron Hetmyer saw them home. That win of course coming off the back of an equally impressive victory on the road in Chennai will have left the squad sky high in confidence.
It was also a fascinating tactical battle between arguably the best 2 sides in the tournament. Rajasthan continued to pick 3 frontline spinners on a pitch in Ahmedabad that didn't turn at all, a decision that looked like it might backfire when Shami and Hardik where moving the ball around as if it were a Test match.
What appears to be more likely is that Rajasthan are picking 3 spinners specifically to allow them to bowl deeper into the innings and limit the effectiveness of lower order hitters whose primary role is to go after the pace bowlers who historically bowl most of the overs at the death.
| Over | % bowled by pace | % bowled by spin | economy pace | economy spin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16th | 52.1% | 47.9% | 9.96 | 7.22 |
| 17th | 64.3% | 35.7% | 11.20 | 7.69 |
| 18th | 82.0% | 18.0% | 10.37 | 8.30 |
| 19th | 90.1% | 9.9% | 12.03 | 7.25 |
| 20th | 96.0% | 4.0% | 12.08 | 16.67 |
IPL 2023 death over stats pace vs spin
The above table certainly suggests their is method to their madness although it's probably too early to draw too many conclusions until we've seen spinners bowl more during the last 3 overs in matches.
Where the Royals are also at a disadvantage is that in picking 3 spinners, they are limiting themselves to having just 2 pace bowlers. The sides that may be able to take full advantage of this new tactic, which is also a benefit being derived from the new impact sub rule, will almost certainly be those that have a batsmen who can also bowl pace. GT had Hardik Pandya while LSG have both Kyle Mayers and Marcus Stoinis.
This will be the first match to be held in Jaipur since 2019 so we don't have much of a sense of the current pitch conditions. However, if past IPL records at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium are are anything to go by then winning the toss and chasing would appear the way to go with 68.1% of matches here won by the side batting second.
RR vs LSG head to head
LSG bowling vs RR batting
LSG do have the advantage of having a couple of old Royals players in Gowtham and Unadkat who can give them the inside track on conditions in Jaipur. Meanwhile, LSG could look to bring back Amit Mishra who has a very good IPL record at this ground.
Amit Mishra IPL bowling stats at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium
Mishra also has a good head to head record against Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson but LSG will hope that their seamers can account for those 2 wickets earlier in the innings. In that regard, Avesh Khan has certainly troubled Buttler early on in recent T20 matches with the big right arm seamer bowling England's white ball captain 3 times in the powerplay during matches played in 2022.
Avesh Khan all T20 dismissals vs Jos Buttler
That being said, LSG's powerplay bowling has been something of a concern so far in IPL 2023 with just 6 wickets taken to date. 2 of those were delivered by Yudhvir Singh on his debut against a weakened PBKS top order while Avesh Khan himself has bowled 6 wicketless powerplay overs in IPL 2023. Other than that difficult start in Gujarat, the Royals batsmen have been brutal in the powerplay.
Going back to the point that we made early in this blog about using spin in the later part of the innings, Shimron Hetmyer has an excellent record against LSG's seamers, he's never been dismissed by any of them before in T20 cricket and strikes at 220+ against Avesh Khan.
Ravi Bishnoi vs Shimron Hetmyer T20 head to head
Conversely, he's struggled against Ravi Bishnoi in previous meetings and we did see LSG hold their wrist spinner back until the 14th over of their game against PBKS suggesting that he might similarly be used as a weapon against the Royal's finishers today.
RR bowling vs LSG batting
Will Rajasthan go for 3 spinners, 3 times in a row? Certainly there are a few batsmen in the Super Giants squad who would be much happier facing the seamers over the spinners. For example, between them Ashwin, Zampa and Chahal have dismissed LSG's top order stars KL Rahul, QdK and Mayers a staggering 17 times in previous T20 appearances!
Boult and Sandeep Sharma T20 head to head vs KL Rahul
Conversely, KL Rahul is one of the few openers who hasn't regularly succumbed to Trent Boult's opening bursts and in fact has never been dismissed by Sandeep Sharma before. Therefore there is certainly an argument to be made within the head to head data that the Royals would do well to stick to their current tactics of having spin available in all stages of the game.
Lucknow will be looking towards the likes of Deepak Hooda and Nicolas Pooran to combat that potential spin threat so it will be fascinating to see which position they come in at. Pooran is particularly effective against wrist spin, averaging 43 at a strike rate of 157. However, he doesn't fair so well against right-arm finger spin and in particular Ravi Ashwin.
Ashwin vs Pooran T20 head to head
Rajasthan may also feel that on the evidence of what they saw against PBKS that LSG's middle order is weak against pace, with the final 6 wickets in their innings all falling to Punjab's seamers. Rajasthan could of course go for nuclear option and drop one of their underperforming batsmen in Padikkal or Pirag and bring in a 3rd seamer to sit alongside the 3 spinners...
All stats used in this blog are from my own databases which are freely accessible below
IPL head to head player stats
IPL player stats by venue
IPL stadium statistics.
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