'Play Ravindra Jadeja as a pure batter and drop Suresh Raina' - Sanjay Manjrekar previews CSK vs KKR clash

The Sunday (26-09-2021) doubleheader of IPL 2021 will take place between Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders. Though CSK is maintaining a fine run of form in this season, some of their senior players like Suresh Raina or Ambati Rayudu are looking rusty. However, Raina is looking more off-color as compared to Rayudu, who racked up 32 off 22 in the last game.

In the same light, former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar added that both Raina and Rayudu are looking a bit off and, in this case, CSK should go forward with the latter. Manjrekar chose Rayudu because he felt Andhra cricketer has some journey left with the yellow army of CSK.

“The worry for Chennai is that both (Suresh) Raina and (Ambati Rayudu]) are looking off-color; Raina more than Rayudu. But if I have to look at somebody who is a possible candidate for success going ahead, I’ll go with Rayudu ahead of Raina,” said Sanjay Manjrekar while giving a preview of the CSK vs KKR game on Dafa News.

While talking more ahead of KKR vs CSK game, Manjrekar added that CSK should rope in Karm Sharma and drop Suresh Raina as they already have enough depth in batting. The cricket analyst also brought up one more point on the table by suggesting CSK should play Ravindra Jadeja as pure batter and drop Raina certainly.

Sanjay Manjrekar suggests CSK to play Karn Sharma against KKR

“That’s where Imran Tahir or Karn Sharma could be looked at, but I doubt that Tahir will replace a foreign player. So, what I would do is have Karn Sharma coming into the team and play Ravindra Jadeja as a pure batter and leave out Suresh Raina,” he added.

Raina has been looking at his low in the last two seasons as he averaged below 25 in the 2019 season and pulled out of the 2020 season. Talking of this season, he has managed just 144 runs at an average of 24 runs striking 127.43. It will be a thing to see if Raina can produce some vital runs for CSK against Kolkata.