Having lost four matches on the trot, it is almost a do-or-die contest for Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore as they take on Kolkata Knight Riders today.
Kolkata Knight Riders, on the other hand, is coming from a defeat in the super over, the match they fought back brilliantly before losing it to Rabada. With Narine returning to the side, KKR is still the favourites to win with almost everyone’s form top-notch.
Coming back to RCB, they have a lot of worries to look into. Not one but many. Starting from their over-dependence on Kohli and De Villiers to their bowling department who share an economy rate just under 10. If not for Chahal’s four overs, the team would be giving away 210+ every single match.
The team selection hasn’t been great as well. Leaving out Southee, their pace spearhead and comparatively a better death over specialist is not working out. The only good thing is that Parthiv Patel is consistently giving them starts and has shown some intent which is missing in other players. It’s high time for both de Villiers and Kohli to come out and perform. As Kohli suggested during the post-match presentation the other night, we might expect a lot of changes in RCB today.
Probable XI: Parthiv Patel (wk), Moeen Ali, Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Shimron Hetmyer/Tim Southee, Marcus Stoinis, Akshdeep Nath/Washington Sundar, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
Kolkata Knight Riders
Probable XI: Sunil Narine, Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik (wk, c), Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Prasidh Krishna
Appa, Gavaskar and cricket