Kolkata Knight Riders will be playing for pride when they take on the Rajasthan Royals in what will be the last match featuring the home team that will be played at the Eden Gardens this season in the IPL on Friday, May 3.
It is now safe to say that the final will certainly not have the home team in action and now that the pressure is off, one would expect the Kolkata Knight Riders to come out all guns blazing and provide some entertainment to the crowd at the Eden Gardens who have not deserted the home team despite their poor showing in IPL 2013.
The Kolkata Knight Riders have some extremely good batsmen in the form of Gautam Gambhir, Jacques Kallis, Manvinder Bisla, Brendon McCullum, and Eoin Morgan and all of them have had their nights in the IPL. The likes of Yusuf Pathan and Manoj Tiwary are not bad players but their performances this season so far have been nothing short of terrible.
The bowling department has been better though and the likes of Sunil Narine, Sachithra Senanayake and Brett Lee have shown that they are still winners in their own rights. Sadly, this season luck has deserted the Knights but they will surely come back stronger next season.
The Rajasthan Royals on the other hand have done extremely well with their limited resources.
Although most people would argue that Shane Watson, Rahul Dravid, Ajinkya Rahane, Brad Hodge and company are established players, yet, one cannot deny that it has been the youngsters who have really made the difference.
Earlier on in the tournament, it was Rahul Shukla who bowled extremely well, while in their last outing, it was young Sanju Samson who played a gem of an innings to guide the Rajasthan Royals to a well-deserved victory.
The Royals have been special this season and they would like to continue their winning run when the visit the Eden Gardens on Friday.
Expect this to be a tough match but with Rajasthan having a barrage of medium pace bowlers, they could struggle on a slowish track at the Eden.