Punjab Kings vs Rajasthan Royals - IPL 2022 Match 52: Who Will Win?

Punjab Kings Team Preview

The Punjab Kings are currently neck and neck with the Royal Challengers Bangalore as they both have won five matches out of ten. However, the Kings manage to slide into fifth place due to their Net Run Rate of -0.229, which is slightly better than Bangalore’s at -0.558. The Kings jumped up the leader board by three spots after they took a surprising win of 8 wickets over the Gujarat Titans on Tuesday. Chasing a low total of 143, the Kings only needed 16 overs to seal the win.

With a slight change in the playing order, Jonny Bairstow was sent out in the top order. However, this wasn’t fruitful and saw a very early departure for him after scoring just one run from 6 balls.

Shikhar Dhawan kept the Kings on track scoring 62 from 52 balls (not out). He created a successful partnership with Bhanuka Rajapaksa which although wasn’t as effective as their previous performance in match 38 where they stitched together 110 runs, their blend of caution and aggression allowed them to run up an 87 strong total together. Rajapaksa was dismissed by an LBW with 40 runs form 28 balls. Liam Livingstone took the squad over the finishing line with 30 runs from 10 balls. He managed to get three 6’s and two 4’s in his batting spell.

Heading over to the bowlers, it’s Kagiso Rabada that stands out. He picked up four wickets while conceding 33 runs, and was awarded the Player of the Match award. Arshdeep Singh, Rishi Dhawan, and Livingstone all managed to pick up a wicket while conceding 36 runs, 26 runs, and 15 runs respectively. The most economical bowler was Sandeep Sharma conceding just 17 runs in his four overs spell for 4.25. With Singh as the most expensive at 9.0, it’s fair to say the Kings did a great job.

We’ll finish with some statistics that can help if you are online cricket betting for the match today. Starting with contenders for the market of top batsman; Dhawan and Livingstone are two great choices. Dhawan has the best batting average of the team at 46.12 and is third in the tournament so far with most runs (369). Livingstone, on the other hand, has the highest strike rate of the squad at 186.62. He has scored 293 runs in the 2022 IPL so far, and managed to hit 23 6’s. Both Dharwan and Livingstone have scored three 50’s in the tournament to date.

For the top bowler market, Kagiso Rabada has taken 17 wickets which puts him in joint 2nd place in the competition, alongside the Capitals’ Kuldeep Yadav and Sunrisers’ T. Natarajan. He has the seventh best bowling average so far at 16.05, and one of the lowest average economical figures at 8.27.

Rajasthan Royals Team Preview

The Rajasthan Royals are currently in third place on the leader board, and with six wins from ten games, they have amassed 12 points. They have one of the best Net Run Rates at the moment with a score of +0.340. With four matches left for the Royals, they will need to get a couple of wins to secure their spot in the Play-Offs. They are on a slight losing streak, with the Kolkata Knight Riders handing them their second defeat in a row.

The Royals weren’t able to defend their moderate total of 152, despite a great start in their first 10 overs, and the Knight Riders were able to reach 158 in just 19.1 overs. Jos Buttler seemed to be getting into the swing of this match before his dismissal in the 8th over. He ended with 22 runs form 25 balls for a strike rate of 88.0. Number two, Devdutt Padikka, didn’t fair much better. He was caught and bowled after facing five balls scoring just two runs. The middle order was more promising with skipper Sanju Samson getting just over the half century mark finishing with 54 runs from 49 balls. The Knight Riders did well to take the wickets of Karun Nair (13 off 13) and Riyan Parag (19 off 12) relatively quickly, which halted any momentum that was gaining for the Royals. Shimron Hetmyer finished with 27 runs from 13 balls not out. Overall however, Samson stated they were about 15-20 runs short given their strong batters.

Turning our attention to the bowlers, Trent Boult had the best bowling figure (1/25) for his four overs spell. He was also the most economical player at 6.25. Prasidh Krishna finished 1/37 after four overs, while Kuldeep Sen finished 1/28 for his 3.1 overs. Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal both had a fairly forgettable performance finishing with 0/33 and 0/31 respectively.

Although there are many different markets to explore at the top IPL betting sites, we will stick to the most common two: top bowler and top batsman. At this moment, Chahal has taken the most wickets in the 2022 IPL season (19) and has the best bowing figure (5/40), his bowling average (15.31) puts him in fourth place.

Our IPL prediction for top batsman would be Buttler and Hetmyer. Buttler has completely dominated the stats for the 2022 tournament. He’s scored the most runs (588), claims three of the five spots for highest scores (116, 103, and 100), and has scored 86 boundaries, of which 36 have been 6’s. Hetmyer has a great batting average, of which his score of 65.0 is enough to put him in third place, just 0.33 lower than Buttler. He’s scored a total of 260 runs and has the highest strike rate of the squad at 163.52.

Toss Prediction

As the 2022 IPL group match stage is reaching the end, there have been a decent number of teams successfully defending their score and overcoming the slight disadvantage that arises when bowling with dew. However, for the majority of the season, the mantra has certainly been ‘win the toss, bat second, and win the match’.

The Punjab Kings have elected to field first the two times they have won the toss. The Rajasthan Royals have been particularly unlucky and have only won the toss once, in which they decided to also field first. However, these decisions to field first were for the matches starting at 19:30 IST.

The four teams to have chosen to bat first have all done so in afternoon games, with mixed results. Taking into consideration the matches played at Wankhede in this season, it’s currently a 50/50 split between defending and chasing teams winning.

Match 52 kicks off the bumper weekend of IPL cricket at 13:30 IST, and this is the first toss prediction that poses somewhat of a challenge for us. It is interesting to note that the effects of the coin toss is having less of an impact as the season progresses. In the first few weeks, losing the toss was somewhat of a death sentence. Now, the statistics have almost balanced out.

So, what exactly is our toss prediction? We think that the captain to win the toss will chose to field first.

Pitch Conditions

Before the rebuild of Wankhede Stadium in 2011, the seaside location would give a good amount of assistance to the swing bowlers at the beginning of each day when the sea breeze was the strongest. Now, the stands mitigate these effects. The pitch is typically run heavy, helped by the shorter boundaries. Aggressive batters and fast bowlers are likely to dominate.

The Punjab Kings have played two matches at Wankhede Stadium so far in the IPL 2022. Their highest total was 187 in match 38 where they scored an average of 9.35 per 6 balls, while their lowest was 137 in match 8 scoring an average of 7.47 per 6 balls. The average of their two total scores is 162 on this wicket. The Rajasthan Royals have more experience at this wicket having played four matches. Their highest total was 222 for an average of 11.1 per 6 balls, while their lowest was 152, for an average of 7.6 per 6 balls.

As the action is kicking off from 13:30 IST, the threat of dew is minimal. The forecast is predicting a scorching hot day, with the temperature set to feel like 46C. The humidity is high at 67%.