It's all on them as Royal Challengers battle plucky Super Giants in the Eliminator
LSG have been over-reliant on their top three, but have found a way out of most holes because of their exceptional bowling line-up
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- Eden Gardens has hosted 16 IPL matches over the last four years and in each and every one of them the captain winning the toss has opted to bowl. Nine of those games have resulted in victories. The average first innings score here, since IPL 2018, is 183.
- Super Giants are yet to win a single match against the teams that have qualified for the playoffs in this year. So perhaps they'll take heart that they are facing the bowling attack that has conceded the most sixes in IPL 2022 - RCB with 123 - on a ground that has the highest sixes per match ratio (17) since IPL 2018.
- Following up on a breakthrough 2021 season, Avesh Khan has yet again picked up at least five wickets in every phase of a T20 game. He's the only player in IPL history to do it twice.
- This has been the year of Dinesh Karthik. He has the best death-overs strike rate (226.37) in the IPL (min 50 balls faced). It's helped him find his way back into the Indian team. And now he has the trophy in his sights. Given all that you wouldn't put it past him to correct his playoffs record which currently reads: 246 runs in 15 innings at an average of 16.4 and strike rate of 107.
- There has been a distinct difference in Rahul this season when he has batted first (425 runs at an average of 85 and strike rate of 149) and when he has batted second (112 runs at an average of 18.7 and strike rate of 101). His whole team has been having the same hang-up. Super Giants have lost four of the six games they've had to chase in this campaign.
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo