Vivo IPL 2017
Match 8: Kings XI Punjab vs Royal Challengers Bangalore
Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore (Capacity 30,000)
Sunday, April 10th, 2017
8:00pm IST
The two teams to play in this match, Kings XI Punjab and Royal Challengers Bangalore, share quite a few similarities. Both the teams have flashy overseas players – Maxwell, Miller and Sammy in Punjab’s team, and Gayle, AB de Villers and Shane Watson in Bangalore’s team. Both of them have had good runs in the tournament before, reaching up to the finals. However, neither of them have been able to win the tournament. In the season so far, both the teams won their respective last match, and both the teams have performed well with both bat and ball. Given so many similarities between the two teams, it is quite apparent that this match will be an evenly contested and an exciting one. Historically, the two teams have played each other ten times in the past five seasons, with Punjab having a slight edge of six wins to that of four by Bangalore.
Team Form
Kings XI Punjab: W
Royal Challengers Bangalore: WL
Team News
The Kings have Indore as their home stadium for three games before they play their first match at their home ground of Mohali on April 28th. They started well in their first match against Pune and turned in an all-round performance. Skipper Glenn Maxwell may not have any incentive to tinker with a winning combination, and will most likely stick with the same unit that won the first match.
For Bangalore, Gayle hasn’t performed well in the first two matches so far, but you can never count the big man out. AB de Villiers may finally get to play for Bangalore this season provided he is fit. If he is included, then one of Billy Stanlake or Tymal Mills will have to sit out, which can deplete Bangalore’s bowling attack. Otherwise Bangalore too would want to field the same team that won against Delhi Daredevils in their past match.
Pitch and Weather Report
The Holkar Stadium in Indore is a low-scoring venue for T20 matches, as the average score on this ground is in the range of 160. However, this is the same venue where Virender Sehwag score 219 against West Indies in a one-day match, so one can as well say that a big T20 score is long due on this ground. Both the teams have the firepower in their batting arsenal to post a high score, or chase down one. However, the pitch also favors spinners, who will likely play a big role in this match for both the teams. The weather in Indore is going to be hot and dry on the day of the match, with temperatures expected to be in the range of 35 degrees celcius at the start of the match.
Teams (probable)
Kings XI Punjab: 1 Glenn Maxwell (C), 2 Hashim Amla, 3 Manan Vohra, 4 Wriddhiman Saha (WK), 5 David Miller, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Swapnil Singh, 9 Mohit Sharma, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 T Natarajan.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Shane Watson (C), 2 Chris Gayle, 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Mandeep Singh, 5 Kedar Jadhav, 6 Stuart Binny, 7 Vishnu Vinod (WK), 8 S Aravind, 9 Iqbal Abdulla, 10 Tymal Mills, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Match Prediction
As we mentioned earlier, these are two evenly matched teams, and we expect this match to be a close affair. Given the all-round flair of the Kings XI Punjab, we will pick them as slight favorites over the Royal Challengers Bangalore for this match.