PBKS vs RR Odds, Team News And Betting Tips

Punjab Kings (PBKS) and the Rajasthan Royals (RR) will play the first match on May 07 at the Wankhede stadium and the second game of the day will see Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) take on the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Pune. We are going to focus on the game between the Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals as we believe this is going to be a cracker of a game.

Rajasthan Royals are in a comfortable place right now as they sit on 12 points and hold the third position on the IPL points table. The Royals have been sitting on 12 points for quite some time now as they have lost their last two games and some of their momentum.

RR know that they need to get a win against the PBKS as it will push them closer to making the playoffs during this 2022 IPL season. The Royals have played 10 games, won 6, and lost 4 as of now.

PBKS and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) currently have 10 points each. SRH are in 5^th place and PBKS are in 6^th place as SRH have the better net run rate. PBKS know that a win over RR will get them to 12 points and push them into the top 4 teams and a lot closer to qualifying for the 2022 IPL playoffs.

This is going to be a very important game for PBKS as a loss to the Royals could make it very difficult for them to fight back in their remaining games. PBKS have played 10 games, won 5 and lost 5 so far. This will be the first time this IPL season that the Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals will play each other.

Top PBKS vs RR Betting Sites

PBKS vs RR Odds

While RR have lost their last two games, PBKS won their last game against the Gujarat Titans (GT) who are currently sitting at the top of the IPL points table. This is one reason why the betting odds are a lot closer than one would expect. RR go into this game as the favorites with odds of 1.8 on Bet365 to win while PBKS are slight underdogs with odds of 2.0.

Our betting experts think that these are fair odds for these games are the Royals should have a slight edge given that they are sitting ahead of PBKS on the IPL points table. On that day, this match can swing either way. We take a closer look at the factors we think will decide the outcome of this game.

Punjab Kings vs. Rajasthan Royals Match Prediction

We expect this game to be a closely contested game that has all the makings to be a nail-biter. Whether this turns out to be a high-scoring or a low-scoring game, we believe both sides will fight it out in the middle and we expect it to go down to the wire.

We are going to back the Royals to finish with a win.

Opening Partnerships

RR have done well during the 2022 IPL because they have had some great starts from their openers. J Butler has been their star player at the top of the order and D Padikkal has shown a lot of promise. PBKS have struggled with their opening partnership as their captain M Agarwal missed a game and has struggled to get going in some games.

Punjab Kings experimented with J Bairstow at the top of the order in their last game but Bairstow failed yet again. If RR gets another good opening partnership going and PBKS struggle at the top of the order, the game will definitely swing the way of the RR.

Better Decisions

This is going to be a really close game and the team that ends up making the better decisions on the night will win. These decisions will come down to player selection and captaincy. We think Rajasthan Royals will increase their chances of winning if they get either Nathan Coulter Nile or J Neesham in the squad.

Punjab Kings have backed J Bairstow but he hasn’t delivered and they need to make the decision to drop him and experiment by bringing in Shahrukh Khan or Atharva Taide to bolster the batting and all-rounder Benny Howell.

The captaincy of S Samson and M Agarwal is also going to be tested during this game. Both captains need to be very careful in deciding their batting order and bowler rotations. We are going to give S Samson the edge in this department as he definitely has more experience than M Agarwal.

Punjab Kings vs. Rajasthan Royals Betting Tips

Here are the IPL betting tips for the game:

PBKS vs RR Top Batsman

The Royals definitely have the advantage in this department and their three top batters are going to be J Butler (2.88), D Padikkal (4.5), and S Samson (4.33). PBKS have the weaker batting line-up and will depend heavily once again on S Dhawan (3.2), B Rajapaksa (5), and L Livingstone (6.5). We are going to back Shikhar Dhawan for this one.

PBKS VS RR Top Bowler

While RR does have the better batting line-up, we believe that PBKS have the edge in the bowling department. The top three bowlers for PBKS are going to be KG Rabada (3.2), R Chahar (4.3), and A Singh (4.7). The Royals will need wickets from T Boult (3.2), Y Chahal (3.2), and P Krishna (5.5). We are going to back Y Chahal to be the top bowler.

PBKS vs RR Player of the Match

These two sides have a number of match winners who can win the game on their own. The PBKS players to watch out for include S Dhawan (8), B Rajapaksa (13), and KG Rabada (10) while the potential match-winners for RR are going to be J Butler (6), S Samson (9), and T Boult (11). We are going with Dhawan for this one.

Punjab Kings vs Rajasthan Royals Projected Playing XI

We expect the playing XI for both sides to look something like this as we don’t expect RR and PBKS to listen to our experts and make those recommended changes.

Punjab Kings: M Agarwal (C), S Dhawan, B Rajapaksa, J Bairstow, L Livingstone, J Sharma, R Dhawan, KG Rabada, R Chahar, A Singh, S Sharma.

Rajasthan Royals: D Padikkal, J Butler, S Hetmyer, S Samson (C), K Nair, R Parag, R Ashwin, Obed McCoy, P Krishna, T Boult, and Y Chahal.

Punjab Kings vs. Rajasthan Royals Head To Head

These two teams have played each other on 23 occasions in IPL history. RR have the superior record as they have won 13 games while PBKS have won 10 games. This will be the first time in the 2022 IPL that these two teams play each other and based on the head-to-head stats, we once again got to favor the RR.

The last time these two sides played was during the 2021 IPL and PBKS ended up winning that game by 4 runs.