Both teams have some fond memories playing at Eden Gardens, last time they can head to head on this venue, Royal Challengers Bangalore successfully defended 213 runs on board, winning the match by 10 runs. The intersting thing is Dinesh Karthik captained the side when they lost to RCB. This time around, Karthik will be batting for RCB.
A few years back goes the memory and comes a terrific match when Gautam Gambhir led Kolkata Knight Riders defended 132 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore, bowling them out for 49 runs.
That is history of past. From 2020 till now, Banglore has defeated Kolkata in 4 out of previous 6 encounters. In these six matches, only once Kolkata went past 140 runs mark, that tells who stands where in batting prowess.
How Strong Is Kolkata Knight Riders Playing At Home?
Having lost their first of Tata IPL 2023 to Punjab Kings, KKR must be in hurry to put things back in perspective. The new captain is yet to make a something special. If the vintage Gambhir captained the KKR in the first match, he would have send Narine as opener to take full advantage of powerplay.
However, new captain has new strategy. Can Venketesh Iyer bat upto the order as opener alongside Rahmanullah Gurbaz, experts will say definitely because they need the strong start to their innings, having destructive players in the middle order, that start can be capitalised and turned into a big score.
Kolkata Knight Riders seriously needs an internationally experienced batter in top 4 which they don’t have. Gurbaz can provide a solid start but how long he can run? Ankul Roy falls short in experience, so Nitish Rana will leave himself with too much a task.
Their bowling is good, perhaps one of the most expensive one in this IPL yet they failed to find their rhythm in the day game against Punjab Kings. It will be a good match between Virat Kohli and Umesh Yadav, on the other end between Faf Du Plessis and Tim Southee.
Such concerns do not exist at RCB, especially not in the captaincy department as Faf du Plessis capably guided his team to an eight-wicket victory against Mumbai Indians last Sunday. They should have ample time during the lengthy travel from the south to the east to determine whether the sweeping victory spearheaded by Faf (82* off 49) and Virat Kohli (73 off 43) was a godsend or a squandered opportunity to evaluate how their middle order performs.
That might not bother Glenn Maxwell, as the right-handed swashbuckler has six 30 scores and two fifty in his previous 12 games versus KKR.
Reece Topley injured his shoulder against Mumbai and will miss this match, so they need to solve the bowling situation right away. David Willey, who has failed to make an impression in this competition after failing to capture a wicket in four of his previous five IPL games, might step in as a substitute right away.
Important matchup: Sunil Narine enjoys taking on the Bangalore franchise, and the Kolkata mystery spinner has three four-wicket hauls against them, the most of any bowler in IPL.
Stats To Know:
- The powerplay average at Eden Gardens is the highest at 58 among all IPL venues.
- In nine of their past 10 games at this location, KKR have scored the most sixes.
- In 13 innings, Andre Russell has scored 395 runs for RCB with an average of 43.89 and an SR of 12.47 rpo.
- IPL match between Russell and Harshal Patel: 35/2 from 26 balls at 8.07 rpo (3×6).
- 3/17 off 19 balls from Umesh Yadav to Glenn Maxwell in the IPL.
- In seven of their past 10 head-to-head matches, RCB have had the highest opening partnership of the game.
- Given that 11 of their 14 H2H victories have occurred when chasing, RCB may choose to pursue this strategy.