Weakened by the departure of Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes, who have left for England to join the Test squad for the series against Pakistan, Rajasthan Royals will have a big challenge when they will face in-form Royal Challengers Bangalore in Jaipur on Saturday.
The game at Sawai Man Singh stadium will be a crucial match for both the sides as both of them will try to win it in every way possible to keep their hopes alive of making into the play-offs.
With two places yet to be decided in the top-4, five teams are in contention and in such tight situation, none of these two sides will want to loosen their grip and miss the chance of making a play-off finish.
Also, they will try to win by a big margin to improve the net run rate.
As for Bangalore, skipper Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers are going good with the bat and are the side's leading run scorers with 526 and 427 runs respectively.
On the bowling front, Umesh Yadav is the side's leading wicket-taker with 17 scalps from 13 games. While, leggie Yuzvendra Chahal and Mohammed Siraj have got 12 and 10 wickets respectively.
On the other side, Rajasthan Royals' batting in absence of Jos Buttler looks vulnerable. Skipper Ajinkya Rahane has failed to perform well, while the performances of Rahul Tripathi, D'Arcy short and Jofra Archer have also been low in terms of adding runs to the team's tally.
However, Sanju Samson - who scored a 45-ball 92 and won the match single-handedly when these two sides faced each other last time - will be hoping to deliver another brilliant innings to help his side advance in the tournament.
In the bowling department, English all-rounder Jofra Archer has been impressive but the other bowlers have not been able to live up to the expectations.