Today is the 9th match of IPL 16 edition, which will be played between Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore. For the first time in this season, Kolkata will play the match at its home ground.

Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, 9th Match

However, imagine what they can do against Kolkata Knight Riders’ top six at the more pace-friendly Eden Gardens, If Royal Challengers Bangalore’s weak attack can wear down the power– packed Mumbai Indians at the batting–friendly Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Against a Punjab Kings bowling attack that didn’t look the most threatening in the tournament, the Knight Riders were 146 for 7 in 16 overs, without a marquee name in their top six who scored a combined 90 off 74 balls. Made it, and left it too. A lot on Andre Russell’s shoulders and seasoned knees. They signing Jason Roy is an obvious boost, but he will not be joining them in time for this game.

On Thursday, he has to match the blazing top order of Royal Challengers. In the last match, Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis scored blistering half– centuries, hitting 11 sixes and as many fours together. Both of them love pace with the bat, which the spin trio of Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Anukul Roy could put on the Knight Riders if they get one further game. Spinners have been more economical than pacers in Kolkata since 2018, and both du Plessis and Kohli have not scored as quickly against spinners in the last three IPL.

Kohli does not have a good record against both Narine and Varun as well. Remember the 2021 Eliminator when Narine single- handedly took out the trio of Kohli, Glenn Maxwell and AB de Villiers to take his team to the final?

Even if the Knight Riders can not replicate that performance, they would be hoping to do better in front of their home crowd.

Team news – RCB without Topley

Royal Challengers will continue to be without Wanindu Hasaranga and Josh Hazlewood, who are yet to join the team, and Rajat Patidar has been ruled out of the tournament. Their left- arm quick Reece Topley, who snared Cameron Green with a searing yorker in their last game, hurt his right shoulder badly while fielding and traveled to Kolkata with his arm in a sling. They can bring in David Willey as a such like– for- such like bowling replacement.

Roy will join Knight Riders in time for Sunday’s game in Ahmedabad, and Litton Das will fly in from Dhaka after the ongoing Test against Ireland. Lockie Ferguson, who missed his first game as well, is still bowling with half a run– up in the nets and is unlikely to play.

Toss and Impact Player strategy

Royal Challengers did not have to use the Impact Player rule in their convincing win againstMumbai.However, they can bring in another batter like Suyash Prabhudessai or Anuj Rawat in place of Akash Deep or Mohammed Siraj, and do the opposite while batting first, If they bat second like they did that day.

While batting second against Kings, they subbed out Varun to bring in Venkatesh Iyer in the chase, and they could stick to a similar strategy in this game as well. Batting first, they could start with an extra batter with Russell slotted atNo. 7 and Narine at 8, and sub out Mandeep Singh for a bowler to retain Venkatesh’s bowling option for the second innings. In either case, they could also play Kulwant Khejroliya instead of Shardul Thakur, who leaked 43 in the first game, with enough batting depth.

Now let’s talk about yesterday’s math match

Rajasthan Royal won the toss and decided to bowl first. So in response to which Punjab Kings, batting first, scored 197 runs at the loss of 4 wickets. In which Prabhasimran scored 60 runs in 34 balls while batting brilliantly, along with Shikhar Dhawan also gradually progressed his innings and playing a good and wonderful innings played a captaincy innings of 86 runs in 56 balls.

Chasing runs, Rajasthan Royal does not get off to a good start. And their opener batsman Ravichandran Ashwin gets out without opening an account, Yashasvi Jaiswal also does not do anything special in this match, he also gets out after scoring 11 runs in 8 balls, after that Butler and Sanju Samson slowly innings. Let’s move forward. Due to which 16 runs are needed in 6 balls in the last over, but only 10 runs are scored and this match is won by Punjab Kings by 5 runs.