Victory in their respective previous games might have eased the initial nerves but imperfections remain, hence Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders will eye a quick course correction to add steam to their campaign in an IPL 2024 match here on Friday.
The Royal Challengers Bengaluru defeated Punjab Kings by four wickets, while the Kolkata Knight Riders elbowed out Sunrisers Hyderabd by four runs to garner some early points.
But entering the points table has not really eased some of the worries – particularly pertaining to the top and middle-order batting.
The Royal Challengers Bengaluru dugout might be a happy space after star batter Virtat Kohli made a classy fifty on an unusually gripping Chinnaswamy pitch while chasing 177 against Punjab the other night, but that’s only one part of the story.
Skipper Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Cameroon Green and Rajat Patidar are yet to hit the overdrive, and for the win against PBKS they had to rely on the last-minute cameos of Dinesh Karthik and ‘Impact Player’ Mahipal Lomror.
The Kolkatans have a much more capable bowling unit, at least on paper, and such a collectively underwhelming effort by frontline batters might push RCB into deep troubles against them.
Once they iron out that rough edges, RCB can look at their bowling unit that still needs to fill a couple of un-ticked boxes despite good outing by pacers Mohammed Siraj and Yash dayal against Punjab.
Pacer Alzarri Joseph continues to be profligate and his figures – 0/38, 1/43 – might prompt the RCB think-tank to bring in England left-arm quick Reece Topley, who has impressive white-ball skills, in place of the West Indian for this match.
The Kolkata Knight Riders offer a strikingly similar plot. Their top and middle-order consisting of captain Shreyas Iyer, Vengatesh Iyer, Sunil Narine and Nitish Rana malfunctioned against SRH at the Eden Gardens.
It required a combined effort from impact sub Ramandeep Singh, Rniku Singh and Andre Russell – the 6, 7, 8, – for them to post a competitive total.
Shreyas, who is central to their batting plans, was dismissed for a two-ball duck, but the return to Chinnaswamy might give him a sense of relief as he had fruitful outings here in white-ball cricket in his last two innings.
The elegant right-hander made an unbeaten 128 against the Netherlands in last year’s World Cup before making a 53 against Australia in the fifth T20I in December.
In bowling, Narine redeemed himself with a frugal spell (1/19) after a modest effort with the bat, but pacer Mitchell Starc, their record buy, and Varun Chakravarthy failed to impress, leaking over 50 runs in their four overs.
The KKR think-tank might not be unduly worried as their campaing is still at a nascent stage, but they would like to see the first-choice pacer and spinner finding their range at the earliest.
But it is unlikely that the Knights will make changes to their eleven for this match, unless they want to give a go to promising leg-spinner Suyash Sharma, who showed fine form during KKR’s pre-season matches.
Today’s face-off: Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Kolkata Knight Riders.
Two teams faced each other: 32 matches
Royal Challengers Bengaluru won – 14, Kolkata Knight Riders – 18.
Last five matches results:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru : W L L W W
Kolkata Knight Riders : W L W L W
Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Kolkata Knight Riders match predictions:
Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders have played a total of 32 matches. Of these, Royal Challengers Bangalore won 14 and Kolkata Knight Riders won 18. So in the head to head encounter between the two teams, Kolkata Knight Riders is leading by winning four more matches. But if the results of the last five matches are seen between the two teams, then the two teams have won three of these matches and lost two of them. So it can be said that any of the two teams can be the winner. It is not possible to predict victory or defeat in that way. Royal Challengers Bangalore can win and Kolkata Knight Riders can win. As in the last five matches they have same result and the last match they won both teams.