Do-or-Die for Kolkata & Bangalore

IPL Strokes by Pranav Mehta

All eyes will be on Sharjah, where two masters of entertainment will clash in the eliminator of the Indian Premier League. The winner will play qualifier 2 and loser would exit the tournament. Both teams are known for their aggressive and attacking gameplay on the field and some entertaining parties after that.

Both teams have showed the intent to go all the way and not give up. One team is led by the World Cup winning captain Eoin Morgan, while the other is led by the captain of the most popular cricket team - India. While, both captains are well experienced and extremely talented, but both have been far from their personal best this season.

Royal Challengers Bangalore – Banking on the form of Glenn Maxwell, Royal Challengers Bangalore have got this far, but to go all the way, Bangalore fans would be hoping for AB de Villiers, Virat Kohli and Daniel Christian to come back to their peak form. Devdutt Padikkal, has not been producing any impactful innings for a while now. While in the bowling, Chahal’s return to form and some incredibly unbelievable bowling from Harshal Patel has brought Royal Challengers Bangalore so far. Mohammed Siraj and Daniel Christian have also been pretty decent, but then comes the concern of the fifth bowler, which has troubled Virat for long now. With this being last season for Virat Kohli as captain, surely he would like to finish with a trophy.

Kolkata Knight Riders – One team that has looked like a team to beat is Kolkata Knight Riders. They have won five games out of seven in the UAE leg and those two games that it has lost were very closely fought games. In the batting, Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer and Rahul Tripathi have piled up a lot of runs and given regular and consistent starts. With the ball, Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine have been incredible. The pace of Lockie Ferguson, has looked threatening. To add on, addition of Shakib al Hassan has brought more stability to both their batting and bowling departments. Eoin Morgan has used his resources brilliantly and Dinesh Karthik, behind the stumps has had a big role to play in the success of Kolkata Knight Riders.

Head-to-head

Kolkata has a marginal advantage with 15:13 in the 28 matches played between them. In this year’s IPL, Bangalore won the first one, while Kolkata absolutely thrashed Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

What to expect from the match?

The match is at the legendary Sharjah Cricket Stadium and the wicket has something for everyone. Average score here has been around 165 and teams chasing have generally been able to generate sufficient amount of pressure to squeeze the opponent with some quality spin. Both teams would like to chase and have the target in front of them. The conditions should favour the Kolkata Knight Riders slightly more than the Royal Challengers Bangalore, cause of the two quality mystery spinners. The team that wins here, could very well lift the trophy this year.

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