The two teams would be looking for a winning start as that will keep their hopes of making it to the play-offs alive. Rajasthan are placed at sixth position in the points table with three wins from seven games. While Punjab are just below Rajasthan at the seventh spot with three wins from eight games.

Punjab Kings would be aiming for a change in fortune in the UAE as the first half of the season wasn’t a memorable one for them. Despite showing a lot of promise in the early stage of the season, the Mohali-based franchise failed to leave a mark. The team is studded with some of the best T20 players in the business but they never lived up to the expectations. Their head coach Anil Kumble would be hoping for a better show from PBKS in the UAE.

Rajasthan Royals too had a similar performance like Punjab, but the Pink Brigade lost some of their key players either before the start of the league or at an early stage. The absence of match winners like Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes – two of Royals’ marquee players – hurt the Jaipur-based franchise badly.

Coach Kumar Sangakkara worked a lot with the young bunch of players in the side and tried to instil confidence in them during the preparations, it will be interesting to see how the young guns perform for the Royals in the second half.

When these two teams last faced each other in the first half of the tournament, Punjab emerged victorious by a slender margin of 4 runs in a high scoring contest.

Batting first, the KL Rahul-led side posted 221/6, courtesy of a 50-ball 91 from the skipper and 28-ball 64 from West Indies swashbuckler Nicholas Pooran. In response, the Royals reached 217/7 in the stipulated 20 overs with their skipper Sanju Samson notching up a sensational century, that went in vain. Samson scored 119 off 63 deliveries and played one of the best knocks of his IPL career. The right-handed batsman was adjudged the player of the match for his near-perfect innings.

Here are the Updates of IPL 2021, Match 32, RR vs PBKS:

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