After each loss this season, RCB skipper Virat Kohli has expressed hope in the presentation ceremony; hope that his side will turn things around in the next. But after their fourth loss, Kohli seemed to give up on the current squad.
“The tournament isn’t so long, so you need to think on your feet on what the best XIs are. We will sit down and talk to see how we can balance our team and allow our players to create some match-winning performances,” Kohli said after the game against Rajasthan Royals.
They lost their last game by seven wickets and now they will be up against a balanced KKR side, who have won two matches out of three they have played so far.
The last time RCB beat KKR was in May 2016 at Eden Gardens and they have suffered defeats in their last three encounters against the Kolkata-based side at Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Batting collapses have been RCB’s biggest worry and to make matters worse captain Kohli’s form has not been upto his usual high standards. He has managed just 78 runs at an average of 19.40 in the games so far. That would have still been fine if the others were putting up the runs but Parthiv Patel and AB de Villiers are the only RCB batsmen who have an average above 20.
In their first match against Chennai Super Kings, RCB were bowled out for a paltry 70 in 17.1 overs after their top-order crumbled before the bowling of Harbhajan Singh and Imran Tahir.
Against Sunrisers Hyderabad, the RCB bowlers allowed SRH to post a mammoth 232 with centuries from Jonny Bairstow and David Warner. RCB then collapsed to an embarrassing 35 for 6 in the eighth over, with Kohli and de Villiers contributing just four runs between them. In the end, they were skittled out for 113 to lose the match by a massive 118 runs.
Against Rajasthan Royals too, RCB top order failed, except Parthiv who scored a half century. The RCB think-tank would be hoping that their top order batsmen come out with flying colours on Friday against KKR.
Despite their struggling form, Kohli and de Villiers are nearing personal milestones. Kohli is 17 runs away from becoming the second Indian cricketer after Suresh Raina to complete 8,000 T20 runs and de Villiers 15 runs short of becoming the second highest T20 run-scorer for RCB. He has 3,406 runs under his belt.
The bowling department has also been disappointing. Apart from Yuzvendra Chahal, all the other RCB bowlers have not been among wickets and have conceded far too many runs in death overs.
The presence of Marcus Stoinis has already given the team a more solid feel but with all the talk of new faces, Washington Sundar will finally get a chance. A good batsman, a solid bowler – he could give RCB the balance that Kohli seeks.
KKR have been one of the in-form teams of the competition and even though they lost their last game by 3 runs in Super Over against Delhi Capitals, their confidence level is still high with their batsmen, including Nitish Rana, Andre Russell, Robin Uthappa and Shubhman Gill, in top form.
Russell has been in sensational form with his incredible power-hitting ability that helped KKR win two matches. Restricting him will be a challenge for Chahal and company.
Rana has been impressive as an opener and in the middle order too in the first two games. The performance of Gill will be watched keenly since he is tipped to be a future India star.
RCB and KKR have clashed 22 times in the IPL, with the former coming out victorious on nine occasions. Since 2017, KKR’s dominance has been absolute with 4 wins in 4 matches.
Data check
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s runs per wicket lost this season is 18.00 – the lowest among all the teams. A clear sign that their batting just hasn’t clicked.
Kolkata Knight Riders, on the hand, would have looked even stronger if their bowlers didn’t have an economy rate of 9.27 in their three matches.
While RCB have had opening partnerships of 16, 27, 13 & 49, RCB’s opponents have posted opening partnerships of 8, 54, 185 and 60.
The Teams (From):
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (capt), Parthiv Patel, AB de Villiers, Colin de Grandhomme, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Moeen Ali, Shimron Hetmyer, Shivam Dube, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Devdutt Padikkal, Himmat Singh, Milind Kumar, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Heinrich Klaasen, Pawan Negi, Washington Sundar, Akshdeep Nath, Prayas Barman, Kulwant Khejroliya, Tim Southee.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (capt), Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Carlos Brathwaite, Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Rana, Nikhil Naik, Joe Denly, Shrikant Mundhe, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson, Harry Gurney, K C Cariappa and Yarra Prithviraj.
Match starts 8pm.
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