IPL 2021 : RCB v KKR Preview & Probable XIs

RCB V KKR – HEAD TO HEAD : 26 MATCHES

RCB WON : 12, KKR WON : 14

Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on Eoin Morgan’s Kolkata Knight Riders in the first day game of the season at the Chepauk Stadium.

 This year already looks different for RCB. They are the only unbeaten team in the tournament as of now. Glenn Maxwell has been really good with his approach and has made significant contributions in both the games. Virat Kohli, before the start of the IPL, said that Harshal Patel would be bowling in the death and Patel, so far has been brilliant at it. Not to forget Shahbaz Ahmed, who staged RCB’s comeback in the game against SRH, picking up 3 wickets in an over. Kohli would be really pleased by the efforts of his bowlers and would want them to continue the same way.

 KKR had a really shocking outing in their previous game. They were bossing the game for the most part of it, needing only 31 runs off the last five overs with Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell at the crease, they still managed to lose the game by 10 runs.

Captain Morgan has been really good with his tactics and it was on display in the game against MI. The spinners bowled 5 out of 6 overs in the powerplay as both Rohit and de Kock are known to be a bit tentative in their approach at the start of the innings and the ploy actually worked out.  Andre Russell picked up a fifer against MI but he would be really disappointed with his show with the bat. He would be raring to go against RCB against whom he has an outstanding record. He scores at a strike rate of over 220 against them.

It has been difficult for the teams to chase here and team winning the toss would like to bat first. A score in the range of 150 – 160 has proved out to be match winning at Chennai. Teams would look to make full use of the powerplay given the batting becomes really tough as the ball gets old. There are unlikely to be any changes. Although RCB might think of playing Daniel Sams, who has recovered from Covid-19, in place of Dan Christian.

It’s still early days in the tournament and things can change in space of no time. Both the teams would be aware of this fact and would want to add those two points to their tally.

Probable XIs :

RCB :  Virat Kohli (c), Devdutt Padikkal, Shahbaz Ahmed, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Washington Sundar, Daniel Christian/Daniel Sams, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal

KKR : Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (c), Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Shakib Al Hasan, Pat Cummins, Harbhajan Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy