Royal Challengers Bangalore will be up against Kolkata Knight Riders at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Wednesday. While Bangalore have played 7 matches in the season so far and have registered wins in 4 of those while losing the other 3, Kolkata only have 2 wins against their name from their 7 matches. This isn’t the only contrast between the two sides. While Bangalore’s top-order has been doing the bulk of scoring for them, Kolkata have got rich contrubutions from their lower order but their top-order needs to step up especially in this away fixture as Bangalore games usually tend to be high-scoring ones.

The other big reason to worry for Kolkata is the balance of their side. While their spinners have been their strength, their pacers have leaked runs and as a bowling unit the side has conceded 200 runs three times in seven matches this season after which it becomes difficult for any side to end up on the winning side. Moreover, the injury to Shardul Thakur would have also played caused a headache as balance of the side has gone haywire. But their top-order concerns are far worse. They have tried five opening combinations, have lost the most wickets inside the powerplay with a run rate which is among the worst in this phase of the game across teams this season.

That would surely not be the way to go about the innings especially in Bangalore against an opposition which is as top-heavy as it gets. But the good thing is one of Kolkata’s two wins for Kolkata came against this very opposition. On that time, the spin trio had done the trick for them at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata after Shardul’s 68 off 29. But these would be different conditions and there is no Shardul either for Kolkata and the franchise would need to find battes in the top order to put their hands up.

Bangalore have the best opening combination this season with Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli both in the race to end as the season’s highest run-getter. Apart from them Glenn Maxwell has been in great nick too but very little has come from the others in batting. Mohammed Siraj has been superb with the new ball and at the death and Harshal Patel is back to his slower ball trickeries which are getting the better of the opposition batters for now which keeps the franchise in good shape heading into this game.

All said and done, this looks set to be a cracker-jacker of a game.

Probable Starting XIs:

RCB: Virat Kohli (captain), Faf du Plessis/Vijaykumar Vyshak/Karn Sharma, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell, Suyash Prabhudessai, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, David Willey, Mohammed Siraj,

KKR: Jason Roy, N Jagadeesan (wickekeeper), Venkatesh Iyer/Suyash Sharma, Nitish Rana (captain), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, David Wiese/Lockie Ferguson/Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Kulwant Khejroliya/Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy