Royal Challengers Bengaluru will lock horns with Kolkata Knight Riders at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday. The Faf du Plessis-led Bengaluru defeated Punjab Kings in their last game after being beaten by Chennai Super Kings in the tournament opener. (Full IPL 2024 Coverage | Streaming)
Andre Russell showed his muscle power in the last game against Sunrisers Hyderabad where he made 64 not out in just 25 balls. His unbeaten knock included seven sixes and three fours. Phil Salt provided a solid start as the opener. Ramandeep Singh also batted well in the middle-order.
Russell conceded 25 runs in his two overs but managed to scalps as well which helped Kolkata Knight Riders win the match by four wickets on the last ball of the match after Harshit Rana bowled a dot delivery in front of Pat Cummins.
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Dinesh Karthik and Mahipal Lomror have been impressive for RCB in their last outing against the Kings. Anuj Rawat has done a remarkable job as wicket-keeper and coming at number 6 to bat, played a crucial inning in the match against CSK.
The RCB vs KKR battle is going to be an interesting contest with both sides having raw pace bowlers and power-hitters. Three key player battles that are worth looking forward to are:
1. Phil Salt vs Mohammed Siraj
Phil Salt likes to attack from the first over as he did against the Sunrisers Hyderabad where he smashed Marco Jansen for a hat-trick of sixes in his first over. He loves pace bowling and Mohammed Siraj could be the one he would target. Siraj can also be dangerous with his accurate bouncer. The battle between the two is going to be interesting.
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2. Virat Kohli vs Mitchell Starc
Virat Kohli is back in form and on Friday he won't hesitate to attack the veteran Aussie pacer Mitchell Starc. Starc, who is notoriously famous for his perfect yorkers and smell-the-leather bouncers will be ready to take on Kohli in the battle between the players who are best in the business. With Gautam Gambhir present in the KKR camp as a mentor, the battle is going to be interesting.
3. Rinku Singh vs Yash Dayal
Rinku Singh and Yash Dayal are going to face each other again. Rinku has the upper hand on Dayal and it will be interesting to see what plan Dayal takes to tackle the star finisher.
RCB vs KKR Full Squads:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Faf du Plessis (c), Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green, Dinesh Karthik, Anuj Rawat (wk), Alzarri Joseph, Mayank Dagar, Mohammed Siraj, Yash Dayal, Suyash Prabhudessai, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Swapnil Singh, Akash Deep, Lockie Ferguson, Will Jacks, Manoj Bhandage, Saurav Chauhan, Rajan Kumar, Himanshu Sharma, Tom Curran, Reece Topley
Kolkata Knight Riders: Philip Salt (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy, Suyash Sharma, Manish Pandey, Vaibhav Arora, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Srikar Bharat, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Anukul Roy, Chetan Sakariya, Sherfane Rutherford, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain
