IPL 2021 RCB vs KKR Match-10 preview

image: BCCI

Today is the first doubleheader of the 10 scheduled in the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League. In the first session, Royal Challengers Bangalore will play with Kolkata Knight Rider at M.A Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. In the second session, the Delhi Capitals will play with Punjab Kings.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Royal Challenger Bangalore is the only team that won two consecutive matches till now compared to other teams. 

This year, RCB has a good start with Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad. This team has done a good job till now but, they too have serious flaws in their team.

In the first two matches, the top-order batsmen failed to withstand till the end of the powerplay. They are losing one or two wickets and scoring an average of 40 runs by the end of the powerplay.

RCB has to find a pair of openers in the playing 11 who can score and stand in the crease for a while till the end of a couple overs after the powerplay.

Sending AB de Villiers and Glen Maxwell in the middle-order is a good decision, as they are the only players fighting against the bowlers and score some runs in previous matches.

Coming to bowlers, Harshal Patel done really a good job in the first match against the Mumbai Indians by picking the five-wicket haul. And took two wickets in the second match against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Shabaz Ahmed took three wickets in the second match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad in just two overs. Promoting him to a full four-overs or at least three overs might be a good idea for the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

RCB needs to be cautious with Andre Russell in the death overs as he can pick wickets and need KKR's opening batsmen Shubman Gills and Nitish Rana's wicket as early as in the powerplay to have a chance of winning.

Royal Challengers Bangalore Squad

Probable Playing 11

1 Virat Kohli (capt), 2 Devdutt Padikkal, 3 Shahbaz Ahmed, 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 AB de Villiers (wk), 6 Dan Christian/Daniel Sams, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Kyle Jamieson, 9 Harshal Patel, 10 Mohammad Siraj, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal

Kolkata Knight Riders

Till now Kolkata Knight Riders won the match against the Sunrisers Hyderabad and lost a match to Mumbai Indians. 

In the first match, KKR has exploited the weak SRH batting lineup and won the match by 10 runs with good fielding and bowling efforts. In the second match, Mumbai Indians has exploited their weak batting lineup which costed their match.

TIll now no team in the IPL has scored big runs in the death overs, the bowling teams are exceptionally good with their spells. In the match against MI, KKR just scored 20 runs by losing 3 wickets in the last 4 overs of the match.

No one except for Nitish Rana and Shubman Gill Scored a double-digit. The poor middle-order might cause KKR more matches if they are unable to fill the gap soon with strong players.

In the match against the MI, Andre Russell took a five-wicket haul, which is really impressive from the Caribbean man. Those wickets didn't help the team to bag a victory in that match. As the MI bowling is been exceptional against KKR.

The KKR players need to cautious while playing Harshal Patel's and Washington Sundar bowling and need Virat's, Glen Maxwell, AB de Villiers wicket as soon as possible in the game. 

Here is the Kolkata Knight Riders Squad

Probable playing 11

1 Shubman Gill, 2 Nitish Rana, 3 Rahul Tripathi, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 6 Andre Russell, 7 Shakib Al Hasan, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Prasidh Krishna, 11 Varun Chakravarthy

Toss: In the last match, the toss winning captain Rohit Sharma, chose to bat first and won the match in the M.A Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. Today also the toss winning captain might choose to bat First.