Match 53 of the 2025 Indian Premier League season brings us a crucial encounter between a Kolkata Knight Riders side desperate for a win and a misfiring Rajasthan Royals side whose playoffs fate has already been sealed at Eden Gardens on May 4.
For the game, here are our preview and predictions.
Indian Premier League 2025 | Match 53: Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals | 15:30 IST, May 4
In need of wins, the hosts managed to pull off a heist in their last match against the Delhi Capitals away from home thanks to the heroics of stand-in skipper Sunil Narine after Ajinkya Rahane went off the field due to a hand injury.
The defending champions had started the match on the front foot, having raced to 159/4 in 15 overs as everyone in the top four contributed. However, DC managed to curtail the flow of runs, restricting KKR to 204/9 in the end. Chasing 205, DC were cruising at 136/3 at one point—needing just 69 runs off 41 balls—before Narine turned the game on its head. The Trinidadian plucked two wickets in one over as well as scalped set batter Faf du Plessis (62 off 45) in his final over to secure a 14-run win for his side.
With nine points from ten games, KKR need to win all four of their remaining games.
On the other end, it has been a disappointing season for the Royals. With a smaller, relatively new squad, RR have struggled to nail down a consistent playing XI, largely due to most of their players not performing well. Injuries to key players have further tested their resolve. While skipper Sanju Samson had to sit out the Mumbai Indians game due to a muscular injury, death-ball expert Sandeep Sharma has been ruled out for the season after breaking a bowling-hand finger against the Gujarat Titans.
Going up against the in-form Mumbai Indians without arguably two of their most important players was never going to be easy, but the manner of the defeat likely left lasting scars on the RR players’ minds.
Put to bat first, the MI batters ran riot after some cautious batting in the Powerplay. Openers Ryan Rickelton and Rohit Sharma scored quick fifties before Suryakumar Yadav and skipper Hardik Pandya further took the RR bowlers to the cleaners‚ scoring 71 runs in the death overs to post the joint-highest total at the ground (217/2).
In reply, the RR batting order crumbled once again—more spectacularly than in any other game this season. Deepak Chahar dismissed Vaibhav Suryavanshi—now the youngest-ever IPL centurion—for a duck in the first over; by the end of the fifth over, half the side was back in the pavilion. Some rearguard action from Jofra Archer propelled RR to 117, though it was hardly enough to avoid a defeat by a three-figure margin—the second-biggest loss in the history of the inaugural IPL champions.
Coming back to this fixture, KKR are still in with a shout to make the playoffs. RR, on the other hand, have nothing to lose, though that makes them that much more dangerous.
Recent matches at Eden Gardens have assisted spinners and change-of-pace seamers, making the KKR bowling attack far superior to the RR attack on paper. Thus, with both batting lineups struggling for consistency, this game will be won by the bowlers.
On current form, we’re backing the Knight Riders to win this game and keep the top four teams in check in the race for the playoffs.
Fantasy XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Dhruv Jurel, Ajinkya Rahane, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sunil Narine (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal (vc), Riyan Parag, Jofra Archer, Maheesh Theekshana, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy
Venue: Eden Gardens, Kolkata
Winners Prediction: Kolkata Knight Riders
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