Guwahati: Knight Riders will have little margin for error when they take on Virat Kohli’s resurgent Royal Challengers Bangalore in an Indian Premier League game on Monday.
The biggest positive for RCB is that captain Kohli has finally got his touch back after ordinary performances at the beginning of the season. Padikkal has been in good touch, but AB de Villiers, who played some exquisite knocks at the beginning of the tournament, has looked off colour in recent outings. The big-hitting Aaron Finch has also struggled, failing to capitalise on his starts.
Meanwhile for KKR, the biggest cause of concern will be the availability of big-hitter Andre Russell, who hurt his knee when he dived into the advertisement boards after missing a catch on Saturday. Shubman Gill has been fabulous at the top with two half centuries so far. Nitish Rana has looked good in patches while Eoin Morgan has also been erratic. Skipper Karthik, who copped up a lot of criticism for his batting, was back among runs with a vital 29-ball 58 against KXIP.
SQUADS
Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik (c/wk), Eoin Morgan, Shubman Gill, Tom Banton, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Kuldeep Yadav, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson, Rinku Singh, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Nikhil Naik, Chris Green, M Siddharth, Sandeep Warrier, Varun Chakravarthy and Siddhesh Lad.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Aaron Finch, Josh Philippe, Chris Morris, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Shahbaz Ahmed, Devdutt Padikkal, Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, Dale Steyn, Pawan Negi, Isuru Udana, Shivam Dube, Umesh Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Washington Sundar, Pavan Deshpande, Adam Zampa.
