MATCH PREVIEW (N. SUDARSHAN)
The final time Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) met Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), its spinners in Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy had left Faf du Plessis and his males in a daze.
The large 81-run victory on the Eden Gardens set the tone for KKR’s marketing campaign, and drowned out all of the chatter about RCB’s title credentials after the rousing win over Mumbai Indians within the opener.
Halfway into the season, when the 2 conflict once more, this time on the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Wednesday, it looks like a complete new world.
KKR has misplaced 4 in a row and is now eighth within the desk. RCB has discovered methods to win – three of its final 4 video games – regardless of not exuding the vibes of a trophy-contender and even whereas defending totals (all three being day video games).
KKR’s issues are manifold. Its batters have repeatedly been pegged again within the PowerPlay whereas frontline bowlers in Narine and Umesh Yadav have gone wicketless within the final 4 and 6 matches respectively.
Maverick Andre Russell is but to blow up and whereas there have been notable performances from the likes of Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer, Jason Roy and skipper Nitish Rana, they’ve solely performed solo.
“We just have to keep pushing hard and keep enjoying ourselves,” stated Roy, on match-eve. “It’s very easy in short-format cricket to lose a lot of confidence. So we are trying to keep it high and make sure our methods don’t change too much.
“But as individuals we have to improve and see how we can impact the game in a better way. We have had some good individual performances which is a positive. But a loss is a loss. We have to draw that line in the sand now with half the season done. We just have to push forward.”
For RCB, it will likely be essential for the middle-order to fireplace when given the chance. The top-three of Virat Kohli, du Plessis and Glenn Maxwell have scored the majority of the runs in what looks like a throwback to the occasions when Kohli, Chris Gayle and A.B. de Villiers dominated. But the crew might be higher served by not being so top-heavy.
“Last year our top-order struggled but the rest of the batters were exceptional… the likes Shahbaz [Ahmed], DK [Dinesh Karthik] and [Mahipal] Lomror.,” Mike Hesson, RCB’s Director of Cricket Operations, reasoned.
“This year we have played five games at home and here our top-order is always going to do well. They have not just scored the bulk of the runs but they have had the biggest opportunities to do so. As the tournament unfolds and we get away from Chinnaswamy, the middle-order will get more opportunities and we have a lot of confidence in them.
“We have to start better than we did in the last game against KKR. We weren’t as good with the ball and obviously how we play KKR through the middle overs is going to be important as well. So we will focus on that rather than the potential state of mind they may be in [after four successive losses].”
Source: sportstar.thehindu.com