RCB are coming off a 15-run loss, they suffered at the hand of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in an away tie, whom they already beat in their home tie, which was a high-scoring encounter; while KKR, on the other hand, lost another high-scoring thriller to Delhi Daredevils in an away tie, after they beat him in the home tie, in their opening game of the tournament. Considering their performance in the previous tie, both the teams put up a fair performance, but not good enough for a win.
Considering RCB’s bowling performance in the previous game, it was a moderate performance from their bowlers, with Kane Richardson claiming a couple of wickets for 45, along with Shane Watson and Tabraiz Shamsi, claiming a wicket each. However, considering their batting performance, it was opener KL Rahul, who came up with a stellar performance, scoring a knock of 51, along with AB de Villiers, who was lucky to score 47 odd runs, following a couple of dropped catches, as RCB lost the game by 15 runs.
KKR, on the other hand, had a decent performance with the ball, as both Andre Russell, and Umesh Yadav, claimed three wickets each, while Sunil Narine too claimed a victim. However with the bat, it was again the classic opener Robin Uthappa, who played a steady knock of 72. Barring his innings, none of the other batsmen were as impressive as they tried to contribute decently, but fell short on the longevity, thus giving away their wickets, and falling short of the target by 27 runs.
Therefore, considering their performance from the previous ties, it highly likely that the teams would undergo few changes in the playing eleven again. Although RCB would hate to fiddle with their batting line-up, which has been performing decently in the tournament as of now, the bowling attack could well see a couple of changes, as Varun Aaron, who was pretty expensive, could well be replaced by Sreenath Aravind, Harshal Patel, Abu Nechim, Vikramjeet Malik or Vikas Tokas; while Pervez Rasool too could miss out to Stuart Binny, Akshay Karnewar or Praveen Dubey.
KKR, on the other hand, too are likely to make changes, as Rajagopal Sathish could be replaced by Manan Sharma, while Brad Hogg could be again replaced by Morne Morkel. Also Piyush Chawla could miss out to Kuldeep Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, or Ankit Rajpoot. As the game is being played at Chinnaswamy, the wicket is definitely going to d=stay flat and would certainly favour the batting side, thus prompting the teams to move in with a batting dominated side. However, the fast bowlers would certainly be the bowlers to be watched out for, if there is any chance for the wickets to fall.
Squads:
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Adam Milne, Mitchell Starc, Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Kane Richardson, Samuel Badree, Travis Head, Praveen Dubey, Vikramjeet Malik, Akshay Karnewar, Iqbal Abdullah, Sachin Baby, Vikas Tokas, KL Rahul (wk).
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (c), Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa (wk), Sheldon Jackson, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Brad Hogg, Chris Lynn, Morne Morkel, Shakib Al Hasan. Jaydev Unadkat, Ankit Singh Rajpoot, John Hastings, Jason Holder, Colin Munro, Rajgopal Sathish, Manan Ajay Sharma.
Time: 20:00 IST | 14:30 GMT
(Ayush Gupta is a reporter at CricketCountry. A passionate supporter of Manchester United, he idolises Roger Federer and is also a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) maniac. He can be followed on Twitter @Ayush24x7)
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