The 17th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 will be between Virat Kohli's perennial underperformers Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
Remember what happened in the very first IPL match way back in 2008? Brendon McCullum smashed an unbeaten 158 off 73 balls to help KKR beat RCB by 140 runs at Eden Gardens.
In that match, Kohli made a single off five balls. Exactly three months later Kohli made his India debut in an ODI match against Sri Lanka in Dambulla. Not a good match for him and India.
Since then his personal stakes have risen astronomically, becoming arguably the best batsman in the world in all formats of the game and also establishing himself as one reliable captain for the Indian national team.
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But another team he so dearly supports remains stuck in the rut. And its manifestation, of failure and a general sense of disappointment, continues to spread in the 12th season IPL. 12 years is like a lifetime in any sporting world. Heroes are born legacies built in a lesser time span. A case in point – Kohli's rise.
In that period, in contrast, KKR have won the IPL title twice.
RCB are on a five-match losing streak, continuing from the last season. With four losses to a new season, they will need a miracle to make the playoffs.
For the visiting KKR, the presence of a certain Andre Russell has made everything look so easy. In a sense, they are unbeaten in three matches. Started the season with a thrilling win against last year's finalists SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), then followed it up with another one against Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), then played out a tie against Delhi Capitals (DC) which they lost in the Super Over. And one of the constants in those three matches were Russell's performance: 2/32 & 49 not out vs SRH, 48 & 2/21 vs KXIP and 62 & 1/28 vs DC.
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So he will be once again the player to look out for when RCB host KKR. Then, what about Kohli, and of course AB de Villiers – the two biggest players to feature in the fixture?
Here's everything you need to know about the match:
Date: April 05 (Friday)
Time: 8:00 PM IST, Toss at 7:30 PM
Venue: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
TV Guide: Star Sports Network (Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 HD, Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 1 Hindi HD, Star Sports Select 1, Star Sports Select 1 HD, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 2 HD, Star Sports Telugu, Star Sports Kannada, Star Sports Bangla and Star Sports Tamil.)
Live Streaming: Hotstar and Jio TV
Likely XIs:
RCB will for sure field a different XI with more than a couple of changes. But KKR will be happy to stick with the 'winning' XI.
RCB: Marcus Stoinis, Parthiv Patel (wk), Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Akshdeep Nath, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Yuzvendra Chahal
KKR: Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Dinesh Karthik (c & wk), Andre Russell, Piyush Chawla, Lockie Ferguson, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna
Squads:
RCB: Virat Kohli (c), Parthiv Patel, AB de Villiers, Colin de Grandhomme, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Moeen Ali, Shimron Hetmyer, Shivam Dube, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Devdutt Padikkal, Himmat Singh, Milind Kumar, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Heinrich Klaasen, Pawan Negi, Washington Sundar, Akshdeep Nath, Prayas Barman, Kulwant Khejroliya, Tim Southee.
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KKR: Dinesh Karthik (c), Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Shubman Gill, Andre Russell, Carlos Brathwaite, Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Rana, Nikhil Naik, Joe Denly, Shrikant Mundhe, Sandeep Warrier, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson, Harry Gurney, K C Cariappa and Yarra Prithviraj.
