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IPL 2024

Rajasthan Royals seek hiccup recovery in Guwahati

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I am here to play good cricket and that's what I will do: Riyan Parag
I am here to play good cricket and that's what I will do: Riyan Parag © BCCI

There's no direct flight from Jaipur to Guwahati. The fastest you can get from one city to the other is 4 hours and 15 minutes. On first glance, traveling far east to play a "home" game might make little sense for Rajasthan Royals but when Riyan Parag was addressing the media on the eve of the game and speaking about his familiarity with the conditions to a packed room, it felt like a home game and then some.

Of course, much of the RR squad don't have first-hand knowledge of the venue but the Barsapara Cricket Stadium has pulled all the stops to make them feel at home. The giant hoardings, the underlit roof canopies, the dancing LEDs on the supporting pillars and the table mats are all pink and in perfect agreement with the colour that RR have made their own but yet, there must remain a sense that the team would be playing some 2000 kilometers away from their traditional home.

This feeling, though, of being so near yet so far is not unfamiliar to RR this season. They looked primed to seal a spot in the PlayOffs when they went on to lose three on the trot. They remain the favourites, mind you, to become the second team to qualify even before they take the field (more on that below), notwithstanding how they have been guilty of sweating the last mile. But as Parag said, the defeats haven't meant that his side has "done everything wrong" in those games. Perhaps a change of venue then, with its promise of high scores after Chennai, couldn't have come at a better time.

For the eliminated Punjab Kings, playing a match that will have no bearing on their qualification must feel like a bad habit, for it's been a decade since they have made it to the PlayOffs. No other team has had to wait longer. But it is what it is and all they would want from this match is an encore from last year, when they beat RR at this very venue by five runs. Fortunately, they boast of wins in their last three away fixtures - Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Chennai - and a lot of this game will be how much "away" they can make this for RR.

When: RR v PBKS, Match 65 at 7:30 PM IST/Local

Where: Barsapara Cricket Stadium, Guwahati

What to expect:Guwahati, with its shiny black-soil pitches, has been a high-scoring venue lately despite 70-meter square boundaries, with the average first-inning total in the last four T20 matches here being a shade over 213. Parag expects much of the same this time around too, with dew playing a crucial part in his opinion. The effects of it were on show in the

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