The Kings XI take on the Royal Challengers in the battle tonight!
A battle between two explosive sides with two top class top order batting from both ends. With Finch, Padikkal, Kohli and ABD for the Challengers, it’s against Rahul, Mayank, Gayle/Pooran and Maxwell for the Kings!
RCB are coming off with a comfortable win after Chahal turned the game around in favour of them. On the other hand, KXIP are coming off with a loss in a game that went till the Super Over, even though Mayank played a great knock!
The pace and bounce of Shami and the ability of turn on any wicket by Chahal. The destruction of Maxwell and ABD for both sides at No.4. The two top players of the Indian team, Rahul and Virat. Two overseas seamers Cottrell and Steyn. Two underdogs in Mayank and Padikkal. Two explosive openers in Gayle(If played) and Finch. A lot of battles worth watching in tonight’s battle! It should be a cracker of a match!
Watching Chris Gayle in action against his former team would be really exciting to watch!
Probable XIs and why –
RCB – Aaron Finch, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (C), AB De Villiers, Joshua Phillippe/Chris Morris, Shivam Dube, Umesh Yadav/Parthiv Patel, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, Dale Steyn
Even though Kohli isn’t someone who likes to change a winning combination, Umesh was too expensive against the Sunrisers and Phillippe, who’s an explosive opening batsman for the Sydney Sixers, is just taking a spot down at No.6. If ABD could keep wickets, it wouldn’t have been a question. But, the ideal change that should take place for a better balance would be to take in Morris and Parthiv in place of Umesh and Phillippe. Though these changes are unlikely to happen tonight, it should take place as the tournament goes ahead and they face other teams.
KXIP – KL Rahul(C)(Wk), Chris Gayle/Nicholas Pooran, Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair, Glenn Maxwell, Sarfaraz Khan, Krishnappa Gowtham, Chris Jordan, Mohammad Shami, Sheldon Cottrell, Ravi Bishnoi
Nicholas Pooran was shown a lot of confidence by the team management which was evident after seeing him opening in the super over alongside the skipper. But, he failed with the bat in the innings as well as the super over. A likely change to take place is the Universe Boss coming in for him, as Rahul is keeping the wickets. Though no changes would take place after the way they performed as a unit in the previous encounter, this should be the ideal substitution.
Pitch Report –
Both RCB and KXIP have played a game each on this wicket and both know how it works. In both the games, a total of 31 wickets had fallen, which means that even though the batsmen would end up scoring a 160+ score, the bowlers are likely to pick up wickets on this pitch.
Safe C/VC choices for fantasy –
Kohli, ABD, Rahul, Maxwell, Chahal, Shami
Analysis of various cricket matches 