RCB chase a hattrick of wins to kick off IPL 2021

A few weeks ago, Virat Kohli and Eoin Morgan were leading their respective national sides in a highly competitive setting for the T20I series. On Sunday, the two superstar captains of the international arena will clash again, although not in the Blues, but in Red and purple, in an equally intense environment. RCB will be chasing a hat-trick of wins while the Knight Riders will be aiming to regain a bit of confidence following a collapse against the Mumbai Indians.

Two new faces have stood up for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first two games of IPL 2021. While Glenn Maxwell seems to have found a home and his love for the game back with RCB, Harshal Patel has returned a bowler with renewed vigour having spent three years away from Bangalore. Oftentimes during 2020, two key aspects of the team’s game had come under the scanner for not being able to close out games - batting in the middle overs and bowling at the death. The team management have been shrewd during the off-season to identify the right personnel to plug the glaring gaps.

While both the games thus far have gone to the wire, RCB will be happy with the way the team has closed out two games against difficult opponents. In a league format, often teams that win games in which they could have done better, which end up hovering at the top. The contributions of various players put together have created favourable results for RCB. There have hardly been any players in the eleven who have not had their moment in the sun, and on the days when all the big guns collectively fire, the team will be hard to stop.

KKR on the other hand, were cruising to their second consecutive win, only for their titanic to meet the Mumbai Indians iceberg. A collapse of monumental proportions saw them drop 2 points which would also have hit hard on their confidence. The team owner Shahrukh Khan’s words on Twitter after the game certainly would have pinched a nerve in the dressing room. However, KKR’s top sporting a young, all-Indian look in Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, and Rahul Tripathi have been in scintillating form. Andre Russell is an everlasting threat, while the addition of Shakib Al Hasan for the season has lent them the balance they needed, strengthening their middle-order while giving them that extra spin option. Pat Cummins has hit form having endured a subdued 2020 in the UAE.

Chennai started off as a track that would produce a fair contest between the bat and ball. However, as the tournament has worn on, so have the pitches, and the teams have consistently struggled to chase down scores of 150. KKR and SRH collapsed on consecutive days, failing to chase down identical scores. While a lingering doubt about the impending dew factor might have forced the captains to maybe bowl first, the afternoon sun must take away the hesitation. Win the toss and bat first used to be the mantra in most of the 90s and the early 2000s in ODI cricket, and it might just become the trend again in Chennai in 2021.

Match details - 

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders

Date and Time: 18th April 2021, 3:30 P.M. IST

Venue: M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai

Likely Playing XIs:

Royal Challengers Bangalore - Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (C), Shahbaz Ahmed, AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Dan Christian, Washington Sundar, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal.

Kolkata Knight Riders - Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan, Shakib Al Hasan, Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Harbhajan Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Prasidh Krishna.