With Chennai Super Kings’ talsiman Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dewald Brevis out of the first few matches due to injury, the Yellow Army will hope that their recent star signing Sanju Samson can compensate for the two big hitters’ absence as they take on Rajasthan Royals in Guwahati.

RR vs CSK IPL 2026 Match 3: Date, Time, Predicted Playing XI, Head-to-Head, Pitch Report

With CSK buying 20-year-old left-arm spin all-rounder Prashant Veer who impressed in domestic T20s as well as the uncapped recruit Kartik Sharma in the auction, they will look to give both a start in order to find the perfect balance. But all eyes will be on Samson, who returns to face his former franchise RR and skipper Gaikwad, CSK’s new opening pair.

For Rajasthan though, this will be skipper Riyan Parag’s real test but with big hitters like Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Yashasvi jaiswal and Shimron Hetmyer as well as the experience of former CSK man Ravindra Jadeja in their midst, RR will look to start this season off to a bang.

RR predicted XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Riyan Parag (c), Shimron Hetmyer, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dasun Shanaka, Jofra Archer, Sandeep Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi, Adam Milne

CSK predicted XI: Sanju Samson (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Ayush Mhatre, Matthew Short, Shivam Dube, Prashant Veer, Jamie Overton, Anshul Kamboj, Rahul Chahar, Noor Ahmad, Khaleel Ahmed

Chennai Super Kings: Sanju Samson(w), Ayush Mhatre, Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Urvil Patel, Matthew Short, Shivam Dube, Jamie Overton, Noor Ahmad, Khaleel Ahmed, Matt Henry, Anshul Kamboj, Akeal Hosein, Sarfaraz Khan, MS Dhoni, Dewald Brevis, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Chahar, Spencer Johnson, Mukesh Choudhary, Aman Khan, Gurjapneet Singh, Zakary Foulkes, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Kartik Sharma, Prashant Veer

Rajasthan Royals: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Riyan Parag(c), Dhruv Jurel(w), Shimron Hetmyer, Dasun Shanaka, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Sandeep Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi, Adam Milne, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Tushar Deshpande, Shubham Dubey, Nandre Burger, Kuldeep Sen, Sushant Mishra, Donovan Ferreira, Kwena Maphaka, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Vignesh Puthur, Ravi Singh, Aman Rao Perala, Brijesh Sharma