After losing their first match to Punjab Kings by 7 runs (DL method), Nitish Rana’s Kolkata Knight Riders would like to open their winning account against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata tonight.
However, RCB looks in terrific form after running over Mumbai Indians in their first match at the Chinnaswamy stadium. The team has the likes of in-form Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis, hard-hitter Dinesh Karthik, Michael Bracewell, Recee Topley and Glenn Maxwell.
The top 5 of RCB tell you that the side is capable of reaching out to any target if they are batting second. Which is exactly what happened in the game against Mumbai Indians. Kohli and Faf kept on hitting the likes of Jofra Archer, Cameron Green all over the park.
While Kohli was unbeaten at 82 off 49 balls, Faf scored 73 off 43 balls. And RCB comfortably chased down 172 runs in only 16.2 overs.
Clearly, on paper, RCB have dominance over KKR in this match. While RCB have the experience and talent of five top players in their batting line-up, KKR’s batting line-up is of an underwhelming six players like Anukul Roy, Mandeep Singh, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rinku Singh, Nitish Rana and Ventakesh Iyer.
Just an example: Even against a not-so-great bowling line-up of Punjab Kings in their first match; KKR, while chasing 192, was down to 146/7 at the end of 16 overs.
The team has serious concerns in the Top 5 batters in the unit.
The Eden Gardens is considered a good batting track and the teams batting second have won 7 out of 12 T20 games here. So, if RCB wins the toss and opts to bowl, then things might get a little difficult for KKR on this track because it doesn’t change much in the second innings and instead offers help to the batters.
And keeping the past track-record, the team winning the toss, be it KKR or RCB, will opt to bowl first.
And if KKR wins the toss and bowls first, restricting RCB within a score of near 190, then it has chances of winning this match. Batting first, with a not-so-great batting line-up with only Andre Rusell shouldering the burden of the team, KKR will have little to do in the second innings.
The two teams have crossed each other’s paths in 30 games, in which KKR have emerged victorious 16 times, while RCB have won 14.
The good thing for KKR: Another benefit the Knights can have over RCB is that Kohli and Faf have not been too good against spinners like Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy.
Both the RCB batters haven’t scored big against spinners in the last three IPLs and they like pace much more than spin.
In this case, Narine, Chakravarthy and Anukul Roy can come in handy for KKR. The newly signed Jason Roy might not be available for tonight’s game against RCB.
RCB all-rounder Wanindy Hasaranga and star player Josh Hazlewood might not be available for today’s match.
Even Recee Topley, who played well in the first match against Mumbai, might not play in today’s match after sustaining an injury in his right shoulder while fielding in the game against Mumbai Indians.
KKR: Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Mandeep Singh, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Shardul Thakur, Sunil Narine, Tim Southee, Anukul Roy, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy
RCB: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Michael Bracewell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Shahbaz Ahmed, Harshal Patel, Akash Deep, David Willey, Karn Sharma.