Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will clash in the 31st match of the IPL 2021 which will be played in Abu Dhabi. RCB had defeated KKR in their previous encounter of the tournament in Chennai.
RCB is placed 3rd on the points table with 5 wins from 7 matches and 10 points to their name, while KKR is struggling with 2 wins from 7 matches and 4 points to their name, sitting at the 7th spot.
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RCB is quite close to qualifying for the playoffs, while KKR cannot afford to lose any of their remaining matches to stay in contention for the playoffs.
Therefore, Team COC presents the Predicted Playing XIs for the KKR v RCB match.
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS
The Eoin Morgan-led side was dealt a blow when ace pacer Pat Cummins pulled out of the second leg of the IPL 2021. However, they still have most of their squad intact, meaning not too much shuffling is to be expected in their XI.
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Shubman Gill is expected to open with Nitish Rana, with Rahul Tripathi probably to bat at no.3. Captain Eoin Morgan, keeper Dinesh Karthik and all-rounders Andre Russell and Shakib Al Hasan will form one of the most experienced middle-orders in the IPL for KKR.
Russell and Shakib will be expected to keep things tight with the ball as well and it is expected that Lockie Ferguson will get more chances in place of Cummins in the playing XI. Varun Chakravarthy would like to get some more wickets under his belt ahead of the T20 World Cup, while Prasidh Krishna can turn out to be the trump card with the ball, thanks to his pace.
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE
The Royal Challengers Bangalore will now have a great reason to win the tournament, given that skipper Virat Kohli has announced that this will be his last IPL season as RCB captain. This means there is extra motivation for the whole unit to gift Kohli their maiden IPL title.
As a thank you to all the frontline COVID workers, RCB will don a special blue jersey in this match.
Their playing XI is pretty settled and in fact, despite losing a few of their Australian imports, RCB has gotten pretty good replacements for them.
Kohli and Padikkal formed a very good opening partnership and are expected to continue. Rajat Patidar impressed in the couple of opportunities he got and he will have guidance from AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell who might be slated in the middle order.
Then RCB has a couple of top-class all-rounders in Kyle Jamieson and Wanindu Hasaranga, who can stroke the ball pretty hard. Yuzvendra Chahal will have quite a point to prove after his omission from the T20 World Cup 2021 squad and will be itching to impress with his bowling.
Harshal Patel, Navdeep Saini, and Mohammed Siraj are going to be the probable fast bowling combination that RCB will look to go with against KKR.
KKR COC Predicted Playing XI:
Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (C), Dinesh Karthik (WK), Andre Russell, Shakib Al Hasan, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy, Prasidh Krishna
RCB COC Predicted Playing XI:
Virat Kohli (C), Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Kyle Jamieson, Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
