Rajasthan Royals were one of the better teams if not the best ones after the end of the two day mega auction in Bengaluru. The 2008 champions managed to rope in some of the biggest names in Yuzi Chahal, R. Ashwin, and Trent Boult in their team list. RR appear to have just the right balance with adequate backups for its foreign recruits. However, consistency has been a huge issue for the Royals as they have failed to register sucessive wins in the league so far. Rajasthan Royals' first test in IPL 2022 will be against Kane Williamson's Sunrisers Hyderabad in Pune on Tuesday. The strongest pillar of the Rajasthan Royals squad and their captain, Sanju Samson will be looking to have a stellar IPL for more reasons than one. The free-flowing right-hander is still on the fringes as far as India's T20 team is concerned. Prasidh Krishna will likely partner Boult in the powerplay, and if they can successfully build early pressure, R Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal could capitalise on it to strangle the opposition in the middle overs. How they choose to approach the death overs could be the deciding factor in whether James Neesham plays as the allrounder or Nathan Coulter-Nile.
Sunrisers will be without Rashid Khan for the first time since 2017, and the 2016 champions will expect Willamson and Pooran to shoulder much of their batting responsibility. Marco Jansen, the tall, left-arm seamer, could be a potent new-ball partner for Bhuvneshwar. The other option for that final overseas slot could be the destructive West Indies allrounder Romario Shepherd.For the last few seasons, Sunrisers opted to load up on a top-heavy batting line-up - often with two heavyweight overseas batters at the top, but this time they're expected to open with domestic batters Rahul Tripathi and Abhishek Sharma. Both teams missed the playoffs in 2021, so they will be hungry to begin 2022 on a positive note. In the IPL, these two teams have clashed 15 times, with Hyderabad winning 8 games and Rajasthan winning 7. Williamson will hope to leave behind disappointment of 2021 and start afresh for Sunrisers.