Rajasthan Royals vs Punjab Kings, 40th Match - Live Cricket Score, Commentary

Series: Indian Premier League, 2018 Venue: Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur Date & Time: May 08, 08:00 PM LOCAL

KL Rahul has been in immaculate form in IPL 2018 © BCCI

All over! Rajasthan Royals live to die another day. And that's because they restricted the KXIP line-up while KL Rahul continued to stamp his class on IPL 2018. The Karnataka batsman smashed an unbeaten 95 while the next best score was 11. Very poor batting effort from KXIP, none could really provide the sort of support to Rahul that could've got them home.

@PrakashG_CB

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The last part of that tweet might be a stretch Apin, but I hear ya.

That's that of the Gowtham experiment. It has lasted six balls and brought eight runs for RR while they're a wicket poorer. The good thing about the dismissal though, is that Sanju Samson gets to bat at a position from where he can rebuild, like he mostly does.

Flying start for Rajasthan Royals but Rahane falls

Andrew Tye has earned KXIP a breakthrough on a slow wicket where RR have made a flying start. Jos Buttler has once again shown why Royals have been poor not to open with the England wicketkeeper-batsman earlier in the season. But Rahane's poor show continued.

And RR have tinkered once again - K Gowtham [you read that right] is in at No. 3, instead of Sanju Samson.

TOSS - Rajasthan Royals opt to bat

Big call from Ajinkya Rahane! Only the fourth time this season a captain has opted to allow the opposition to chase. They made three changes - Stuart Binny, Mahipal Lomror and Ish Sodhi in. KXIP have two changes of their own too -

In other news...

India have announced multiple squads for upcoming tours today. KXIP's KL Rahul has been rewarded, and his teammate Karun Nair has been handed back his Test spot. Unfortunately in the RR camp, their captain has lost his ODI spot, but gets to lead the Test team against Afghanistan in June.

Prelude - End game coming for RR?

Let's get an interesting trivia out of the way first up - Delhi Daredevils acquired Yuvraj Singh for INR 16 crore - the costliest player of of the 2015 auction - and finished at the bottom of the points table that season. Rajasthan Royals dug deep for the top two costliest buys this season - Ben Stokes for INR 12.5 crore and Jaydev Unadkat for INR 11.50 crore - and run the risk of 'doing a DD'. They've managed just three wins so far, but have the advantage of having played one game lesser than the four teams above them.

For them to leverage that advantage, a win at home against Kings XI Punjab is the absolute need of the hour today. Can they do it, though, will depend on multiple factors. Those, that Ganesh Chandrasekaran has explained in detail in the preview.