Rajasthan Royals (RR), without their regular skipper Sanju Samson, contains their team for the match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) with a surprising name; it is Kunal Singh Rathore. The former IPL champion side has already surprised cricket fans with Vaibhav Suryavanshi; now, another budding talent is in line to show his skills in the cash-rich tournament. 

Rajasthan Royals, led by Riyan Parag, won the toss and decided to bowl first in the home ground of RCB, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. Kunal Rathore is on the bench as the impact player. But who is Kunal Singh Rathore we are talking about?

Kunal Singh Rathore is a 22-year-old left-handed wicketkeeper and batter hailing from Rajasthan who has played some good hands in domestic circuits previously. In T20 cricket games, he has an impressive batting average of 36.28 in 12 innings, including an unbeaten 61-run knock; his strike rate in the format is 138.04. His best knock came during a first-class match: 156. He can prove his importance as an impact player with his hard-hitting abilities. It will be very crucial for the Royals to choose which particular player in the hour of need from among so many talents on the bench. 

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Rathore made his T20 debut in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in the 2022-23 season. He bagged 147 runs at an average of 36.75 in his first SMAT season. In the following season, he got a total of 107 runs, with a 35.66 average. But the most notable thing about his playing style is the strike rate, which had gone up from 128.94 to 152.85.

Teams:

Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubham Dubey, Nitish Rana, Riyan Parag (c), Dhruv Jurel (w), Shimron Hetmyer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jofra Archer, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Tushar Deshpande, and Sandeep Sharma.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (Playing XI): Philip Salt, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (c), Devdutt Padikkal, Jitesh Sharma (w), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, and Yash Dayal.

Impact substitutes

RCB: Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Dar Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh.

RR: Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya, Kunal Singh Rathore.