IPL FINALE PREVIEW

May 28, 2022

IPL FINALE PREVIEW

It's that time of the year when along with your summer vacation, the most lucrative T20 league on the planet - IPL comes to an end.

The finale showdown of the 15th season of the IPL is set with Rajasthan Royal and Gujarat Titans locking horns.

This will be Rajasthan Royal's first final since the inaugural season of IPL back in 2008. In which underdog Rajasthan was led to victory by a now Late Shane Warne led side.

Gujarat on the other hand can become the second team ever to win IPL in their inaugural season.

Rajasthan Royals:

Rajasthan Royals did the best business during the 2022 IPL mega auction. They went with 'not so Rajasthan' approach of giving youth chance , but rather with star names like Boult , Hetmeyer , Ashwin , Chahal, James Nisham and already settled youngsters like Devdutt Padikkal , Prasidh Krishna. While retaining Sanju Samson the skipper who has been in the side since he was a teenager and now has led the team to their maiden final since 2008 , Jos Buttler and Yashaswi Jaiswal.

If the trophy was won on paper, RR already did it after the mega auction.

Albeit the fact that winning on paper and winning in real are completely different things but still Rajasthan with all the star power they had managed to get into finals unlike Punjab who did great auction but crashed out in league stage itself.

Rajasthan finished 2nd on points table with 18 pts behind the Titan's tally of 20 and ahead of another newcomer, Lucknow Super Giants because of a better runrate.

Gujarat Titans:

If you told me after the auction that Gujarat would top the table and eventually go to play finals (who knows even win it) I would laugh at it saying it's bizzare. They had a pretty average auction while roping the services of Hardik Pandya as skipper , Shubman Gill and Rashid Khan before the auction.

I thought they were out of balance and would finish last in points table , but look where they are - that's the difference between on paper and real. It's sport , anything can happen.

"Hardik khud ka responsibility nai utha sakta team ka kya uthayega" said a friend of mine in sarcasm and I was of the same opinion but Hardik stepped up with one after another after another spectacular performances with both bat and all ball showing he is back in shape and form , proved all the odds wrong.

Although Gujarat had problems with choosing top order batting and pacer besides Shami but until playoffs they had perfect XI , although they overcame those minor but still important difficulties by winning the games one after another.

Rajasthan vs Gujarat :

Rajasthan and Gujarat have played each other twice , once in league stage and another in qualifier 1 both ties being won by Gujarat.

The final will be played in Gujarat's home stadium and also the world's biggest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad - Narendra Modi Stadium. Team India scored the highest score at this venue last year against England in the 5th T20I match of the series. The Indian team scored 224/2 in the first innings.

The ground hosted a total of five IPL games last year, where the first innings average score was 159 runs. However, the pitch is excellent for batting and anything below 180 runs will be a below-par score in the final match. Punjab Kings have posted the highest (179/5 against Royal Challengers Bangalore) and lowest (123/9 against Kolkata Knight Riders) score on this ground in the last IPL season.

Jos Butler will be absolutely crucial for the Royals having scored already 824 runs this year , with 4 half centuries and equaling Virat Kohlis record of most centuries in an IPL season with 4 tons. Although he went out of form at the latter stage of the league he stepped up with two great innings against Gujarat in qualifier 1 and RCB in qualifier 2. "Cometh the hour , cometh the man."

For Titans' it'll be their skipper Hardik Pandya with the bat and maybe ball too , to put on a display like against Royals in league stage with 1/18 and 87* in 52 balls or atleast play a second fiddle like he did against Royals in qualifier 1 with a 40* in 27 to Killer Miller's 68*in 38.