The second half of the Indian Premier League season begins with a double header of action on Sunday as the IPL 2024 campaign continues for the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Royal Challengers Bangalore at Eden Gardens.
Kolkata have made a good start to their campaign with four wins from their six matches and they are nicely on course to reach the playoffs this term. Bangalore have just one win in seven and probably need to find six victories from their last seven if they are going to extend their season.
Kolkata Knight Riders
The Kolkata Knight Riders have looked a much better team this season, much more like the side we were used to seeing a few seasons ago that bashed teams into submission with the bat in hand and then strangled the life out of them when they had the ball. It will be interesting to see how Kolkata go in this match because they come into it off the back of that remarkable game against Rajasthan Royals last time out which they had won until Jos Buttler had other ideas.
They should really have taken plenty of positives from that match but ultimately the heartbreaking nature of the loss could be one which lingers a little. Should they play like they did in that match in this one you would expect them to come out on top because Bangalore are a much weaker opponent and in truth Kolkata look like they are a cut above with both the bat and the ball. A win here and the Knight Riders can forget that defeat last time out.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
It is almost like the Royal Challengers Bangalore don’t learn their lessons from the season before. It has been obvious for a long time that they need to spend some of their budget on a gun spin bowler but time after time they choose to go with overseas all-rounders and then wonder why they get found out. There is only so much Virat Kohli can do with the bat and they need to hope that he doesn’t suddenly lose form otherwise they are in trouble.
To be fair to the players, teams just don’t give themselves the best chance to be balanced when they have an overseas captain and that is going to be a problem for Bangalore until they change that. They could also do with someone in the middle order standing up because it is quite clear they are going to rely on their batters to get the job done for them. You would imagine the best chance for Bangalore here is to field first and chase a score down.
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Key Players
Sunil Narine has been in exceptional form so far in this competition, so much so that it appears he will end up doing a U-turn and come out of international retirement for the T20 World Cup later in the year. Kolkata will want another fast start from him.
Virat Kohli is the leading run scorer in the competition at the halfway mark and if the Royal Challengers Bangalore are to have any chance of turning their season around you would imagine Kohli will need to continue to fill his boots.
Betting
These two sides have been six hitting machines so far in the competition and I don’t really see a reason why that would necessarily change at an Eden Gardens where the runs, and more importantly the sixes, have flowed so far. I don’t think either of these two sides are going to change their mantra. Kolkata are going to look to go big from the start and get a bowling attack which has gone the distance pretty much all season under huge pressure.
Bangalore will look to do likewise to a Kolkata attack which might be a little bruised mentally after the shellacking they took at the hands of Jos Buttler in the last game so I am expecting to see both teams launch with the bat in this one. These two teams have already played in Bangalore this season and there were 24 sixes. Eden Gardens is bigger than Bangalore but not by a huge amount. This is a day game so the bowlers are going to tire. I’m not convinced an 18.5 sixes line is high enough here.
Tips
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