T20 2018 Preview: Kolkata hope to get it right at home against Rajasthan

Kolkata skipper Dinesh Karthik

The Kolkata would surely have let out a collective sigh of relief on Sunday evening. Having qualified for the playoffs the previous night, the one team as the Kolkata would've wanted to avoid from among the three that were still in contention was Mumbai. Rohit Sharma & Co. have been Kolkata's nemesis over the years, and the dominance has never more emphatically demonstrated than in this T20 season.

Later on Sunday night, with Punjab being denied by Chennai, Kolkata were left with opponents they probably would have prefered. Rajasthan, who take on the Kolkata in the Eliminator today, look a far less potent proposition than the two that didn't make the cut on the day. Rajasthan, winners in the inaugural edition, come to the Eden Gardens with the uneasy reminder that they have lost both league matches to Dinesh Karthik & Co. And now they are dangerously depleted by the departure of Englishmen Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes.

Ajinkya Rahane

The 30-run win in Jaipur on Saturday that dashed the hopes of Bangalore and catapulted Ajinkya Rahane and his men to playoff teRajasthanitory, followed Bangalore's middle-order meltdown, and looks more abeRajasthanation than affirmation of overall strength. The Kolkata, the only team in the playoff to be playing at home, have defeated Rajasthan five times in six meetings at the venue. Two-time champions Kolkata have the depth and daring to go all the way.

Sunil Narine's blitzkrieg and the more measured aggression of the powerful Chris Lynn are providing flying starts while the likes of Robin Uthappa, Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Shubman Gill and Karthik present ominous hitting power. Rajasthan leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal had a teRajasthanific match against Bangalore, and should off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham find his bearing too, the contest against Kolkata's openers could well turn out to be an intriguing one. Russell, hamstrung by injury for much of the tournament, is finally beginning to find his bowling rhythm. "His bowling has certainly been crucial for us in the last three-four games," Kolkata's assistant coach Simon Katich said yesterday. With young Prasidh Krishna improving with every match and Barbados pacer Javon Searles looking good, Kolkata's seam-up bowlers are nicely complimenting their formidable spin trio. Of course, with pitches slowing down in another hot Indian summer, the likes of Narine, Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla are likely to loom larger as T20-11 enters crunch time.

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