Riding high on confidence after their comfortable 37-run win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the 28th IPL match on Monday. Both teams are coming after a win as KKR, too, had a narrow win over Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) on Saturday.
Virat Kohli’s RCB didn’t have a good start of IPL 2020 but they seem to have finally gained the momentum. Kohli, too, in good touch with the bat and the run-machine single-handedly propelled his side to a respectable 169/4 wickets against CSK with his blistering unbeaten 90. Later, the bowlers rose to the occasion as well to defend the modest target with ease.
Similarly, opener Devdutt Padikkal has been consistent so far. He has an explosive partner in Aaron Finch, who failed to fire in the previous game but has been quite impressive, overall. Then of course there’s A.B. de Villers, who will remain a key player in the middle-order, along with Kohli. In the lower middle-order, RCB has Shivam Dube and Chris Morris, who both are well equipped with power-hitting abilities.
In the bowling front, Isuru Udana has led the attack from the front along with Navdeep Saini. Morris scalped three wickets conceding just 19 runs against CSK, and will aim to replicate the show on Monday. Yuzvendra Chahal has been their go to man, troubling the opposition with his quality and experience. He had received good support from Washington Sundar.
As the boundaries are quite smaller here, Kohli might opt to go with an extra batsman.
As for KKR, Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy were clinical against KXIP. Varun too, was decent enough in the middle overs.
Moreover, Prasidh Krishna grabbed the opportunity with both hands when he was included in place of Shivam Mavi against Punjab. Krishna returned with impressive figures of 3/29. Krishna is most likely to get another game on Monday. If he does get it, he will aim to provide good support to Pat Cummins and Kamlesh Nagarkoti and form a lethal pace attack against RCB.
One of the main concern for the KKR think-tank was the silence of skipper Dinesh Karthik’s bat, who finally, dusted off his rustiness with a 29-ball 58 against KXIP. However, most worrying is the fact their most explosive batter Andre Russell is yet to find his touch.
Both sides have won four of their six games and have eight points, but KKR are ahead of RCB in the points table on net run-rate.
