De Villiers and Badree expected to play for RCB
Having broken a series of three straight losses with a win against Gujarat Lions, Royal Challengers Bangalore will hope to carry the form against Kolkata Knight Riders
The Preview by Rachna Shetty
22-Apr-2017
Match facts
Kolkata Knight Riders v Royal Challengers Bangalore
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Start time 2000 IST (1430 GMT)
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Start time 2000 IST (1430 GMT)
Head to head
Last season: Each team won their away match - Royal Challengers thumped Knight Riders by nine wickets at Eden Gardens but lost their home match by five wickets.
Overall: Knight Riders have won 10 of the 19 matches between the two sides. At Eden Gardens, Royal Challengers have won three out of seven matches.
In the news
Seamer S Aravind said that AB de Villiers, Samuel Badree and Tymal Mills were likely to be fit for the match against Knight Riders. If that is the case, and Royal Challengers look at picking both overseas players, at least Travis Head and Shane Watson could make way for them.
Likely XIs
Kolkata Knight Riders 1 Sunil Narine, 2 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 3 Robin Uthappa (wk), 4 Manish Pandey, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Suryakumar Yadav, 7 Shakib Al Hasan, 8 Chris Woakes/Colin de Grandhomme, 9 Nathan Coulter-Nile, 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Umesh Yadav
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Virat Kohli (capt), 3 Travis Head/AB de Villiers, 4 Kedar Jadhav (wk), 5 Mandeep Singh/Harpreet Singh, 6 Stuart Binny, 7 Shane Watson/Samuel Badree, 8 Pawan Negi, 9 Adam Milne/Billy Stanlake/Tymal Mills, 10 S Aravind, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Strategy punt
- In the match against Lions, Knight Riders opened their attack with spin - Sunil Narine and Shakib Al Hasan. If Gayle plays, that plan may be used again. Narine has one of the best economy rates against Gayle among spinners (4.39) in T20s, and has dismissed him four times - twice in the IPL.
Key stats
- Knight Riders will be particularly keen to get Gayle out early. At Eden Gardens, Gayle has scored 471 runs in nine innings, his second-best tally at a ground during the IPL after the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Since his switch to the Royal Challengers franchise in 2011, Gayle's scores at Eden Gardens have been: 102*, 86, 6, 96 and 49, all batting second. Three of those knocks have resulted in wins.
Rachna Shetty is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo