Karunesh Kumar Rai
RCB will take on KKR on Friday, at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. This stadium is a high scoring venue. The power-packed batting line-up of KKR has troubled RCB many times in the past and this time it will be no different either.
Andre Russell played a blistering inning against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Kolkata’s first game at the Eden Gardens and looked in good touch. With the small dimensions and batting-friendly pitch at the Chinnaswamy, Russell would be licking his lips to put on another brutal hitting display against what seems to be relatively weaker bowling attacks in the tournament. Both the teams are very strong, when we talk about the hosts RCB have a very strong batting line-up in presence of Faf Du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell. Anuj Rawat and Dinesh Karthik have also performed well coming down the order and giving finishing touch this season , in between RCB have Cameron Green who can also play a vital role in the batting line. RCB lacks behind in the bowling department except for Siraj RCB doesn’t have any quality fast bowler and spinner as-well. RCB have spinners like Karn Sharma, an experienced leg spinner & Mayank Dagar, a new comer.,Maxwell over the years have improved his bowling which gives RCB a backup option to bowl in the middle overs same in the fast bowling department RCB has picked many bowlers like Akash Deep, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Recce Topley but nobody matches the pace and quality of fast bowling compared to other teams. Lockie Ferguson is a quality fast bowler except Siraj in the line-up but he is currently injured. When we talk about KKR, they have a very balanced team in all departments. They have explosive openers as Phil Salts and Sunil Narine then comes experience of Shreyas Iyer and Nitish Rana. Finally hitters Andre Russel and Rinku Singh who have performed very well at the back-end. In the bowling departments KKR have a decent bowling line-up in the presence of Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine and Andre Russel. Suyush Sharma has also bowled very well in the previous year and brings a quality in KKR bowling line-up. The only set-back for KKR is Shreyas Iyer and Nitish Rana who are not in such good touch, Nitish Rana only has 1 century in 2023/24 domestic season and Shreyas Iyer is recently dropped by BCCI from Central Contract list which puts him under a lots pressure to perform in every match. With quality, deep and experienced batting followed by quality bowling and historically RCB losing at their home ground KKR is slightly favourites for this match.
