Both the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab will be stepping onto the field after a considerable break in their scheduling. While the Royal Challengers took on, and lost to the Mumbai Indians last Sunday, Punjab produced an all-round master-class in their match against the Delhi Daredevils on Monday.

Thus, riding on the wave of these contrasts, while Punjab will be looking for their winning momentum to remain intact, the Royal Challengers will be seeking to finish off what remains of their last IPL campaign with a flourish.

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Of the eight teams, Punjab is the only team who have played the least number of matches – nine. It has secured four wins, one of which came against the Royal Challengers when they hosted them on April 10. Punjab have also lost five matches, but with five more matches left to play on, they have their chances to make it to the playoffs, needing to win at most four matches.

Against the wobbling nature of the Royal Challengers who have won only two matches in the 11 matches they have played so far, Punjab will be fancying their chances to give themselves a winning start.

Time: 8 pm

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Venue: Chinnaswamy Stadium

TV: Sony Max, Sony Six, Sony ESPN and their HD Channels

Head-to-head

Played: 19

RCB: 8

KXIP: 11

Royal Challengers Bangalore

  • The hosts have lost their last six matches on the trot. Their last win came against the Daredevils on April 8, while they split a point with the Sunrisers Hyderabad after rain washed out their game held on April 25.  
  • The Royal Challengers haven’t had much working for them in this edition of the tournament, but they will be hoping that Chris Gayle will help them redeem their reputation. The southpaw has enjoyed considerable success in taking on Punjab, including notching two centuries.  
  • While their head-to-head against Punjab remains weak, RCB have, however, an equally divided win-to-loss record against their opponents when playing at home. Both teams have won four matches each when playing at the Chinnaswamy and the Royal Challengers will be seeking that this neutrality holds them in good stead on Friday.

Royal Challengers Bangalore squad: Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Vishnu Vinod, Sreenath Arvind, Kedar Jadhav (wicketkeeper), Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Samuel Badree, Iqbal Abdulla, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Avesh Khan, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tymal Mills, Aniket Chaudhary, Praveen Dubey and Billy Stanlake.

Kings XI Punjab

  • The visitors will want Hashim Amla and Martin Guptill to get them going against the Royal Challengers. The South African has featured in eight of Punjab’s nine matches, and in his previous outing against RCB, went on to score a handy 58 runs to help his team secure the win.  
  • Punjab will be missing out on Eoin Morgan, who has resumed his international cricketing duties for the English team that is preparing for the forthcoming Champions Trophy.  
  • Overall, Punjab has gotten its team composition right and given the way their bowlers destroyed the Daredevils in their last match, they will be wanting to replicate a similar matchup against the Royal Challengers.

Kings XI Punjab squad: Glenn Maxwell (captain), David Miller, Manan Vohra, Hashim Amla, Wriddhiman Saha (wicketkeeper), Shaun Marsh, Armaan Jaffer, Martin Guptill, Eoin Morgan, Rinku Singh, Sandeep Sharma, Arman Jaffer, Anureet Singh, Mohit Sharma, KC Cariappa, Pradeep Sahu, Swapnil Singh, T Natrajan, Matt Henry, Varun Aaron, Axar Patel, Marcus Stoinis, Gurkeerat Mann, Rahul Tewatia, Darren Sammy, Nikhil Naik and Ishant Sharma.