IPL 2013: RCB face KKR in Ranchi`s IPL debut

Ranchi: Inching closer to a playoff berth, Royal Challengers Bangalore will face an inconsistent Kolkata Knight Riders, who would be eyeing revenge, when the two sides clash in the city`s first Pepsi IPL game at the Jharkhand Cricket Association`s International stadium on Sunday.

It is exactly a month since the two teams clashed in Bangalore where Chris Gayle blew away KKR with a 50-ball 85 that was laced with nine sixes.

Riding on Gayle`s brilliance and some other notable performers, RCB are among the top-four in the points table while KKR are languishing in the bottom half.


Both teams will go into the match high on confidence winning their last games. While KKR comprehensively beat a hapless Pune Warriors, RCB pulled off a thriller against the Delhi Daredevils on Friday.

For RCB, Gayle`s rather quiet outings in the past few matches would be a concern. But that has more or less been compensated by the likes of skipper Virat Kohli, who was quite impressive during his 58-ball 99 in the previous match.

Also finding his feet is the fit-again Cheteshwar Pujara, who would be expected to play the sheet-anchor role given that he is not exactly a big-hitter.

In fact, batting is hardly a concern for RCB with pinch-hitters like Moises Henriques and A B de Villiers making up the lower half of their line-up.

KKR, in contrast, have been throughly exposed as a brittle batting unit. Though skipper Gautam Gambhir found some of his lost touch with a half-century against Pune but that would hardly make up for the failure of others against a team like RCB.

Veteran all-rounder Jacques Kallis has been struggling and similar is the case with expensive-buy Yusuf Pathan, who has not been able to justify the captain`s continuing faith in him.

On the bowling front, RCB came in for some thrashing on Friday night even though medium-pacer Jaydev Unadkat stood out with a fiver in four economical overs conceding just 25 runs.

But the likes of Vinay Kumar and Henriques leaked runs at 10 per over and that would certainly be a cause of concern for the team.

KKR`s bowling, on the other hand, delivered against Pune but that can hardly be a measure of how good they are given that the Warriors are a team in doldrums.

Given their current form, RCB would start outright favourites and it would be interesting to see if KKR manage to get the better off their mighty opponent.

Teams (from):

Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (C), Manvinder Bisla, Yusuf Pathan, Jacques Kallis, Rajat Bhatia, Laxmipathy Balaji, Sarabjit Ladda, Brad Haddin, Debabrata Das, Iqbal Abdulla, Brett Lee, Ryan McLaren, Eoin Morgan, Sunil Narine, Sumit Narwal, Suchitra Senanayake, Pradeep Sangwan, Shami Ahmed, Shakib Al Hasan, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ryan ten Doeschate, Manoj Tiwary, James Pattinson.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (C), A B de Villiers, Abhimanyu Mithun, Abhinav Mukund, Andrew McDonald, Arun Karthik, Cheteshwar Pujara, Chris Gayle, Christopher Barnwell, Daniel Christian, Daniel Vettori, Harshal Patel, Jaidev Unadkat, K P Appanna, Karun Nair, Mayank Agarwal, Moises Henriques, Murali Kartik, Muttiah Muralitharan, Pankaj Singh, Prasanth Parameswaran, R Vinay Kumar, Ravi Rampaul, Rudra Pratap Singh, S Aravind, Sandeep Warrier, Saurabh Tiwary, Sheldon Jackson, Sunny Sohal, Syed Mohammad, Tilakaratne Dilshan, Vijay Zol, Zaheer Khan.

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IPL 2013: Delhi Daredevils vs Royal Challengers Bangalore- Live score

New Delhi: Already knocked out of the tournament`s play-off stage, Delhi Daredevils have just pride to play for but Royal Challengers Bangalore have a lot at stake when the two teams clash in a Pepsi IPL match on Friday.

In a complete contrast to their last year`s performance, Delhi have not looked even a pale shadow of themselves. With nine defeats from 12 matches, it has only gone from bad to worse for the home side.

In the current scenario, however, they can play without any pressure. There is no burden of expectations on the misfiring batters and out-of-sorts bowlers. They now have nothing to lose and can just go on to play party-poppers.

Delhi`s top order has failed for inexplicable reasons. Neither Virender Sehwag nor captain Mahela Jayawardene has lived up to their reputations. Australian left-hander David Warner is the only one who has done his bit.

Bangalore, who may still be recovering from a rude David Miller shock, cannot afford to take a step wrong as the fight for the play-offs is tight.

Sitting at the top, Chennai Super Kings are almost assured of a berth in the knock-out stage but there is a close battle among Mumbai Indians, Bangalore, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals for the remaining three slots for the play-offs.

In their last four matches at the league stage, Bangalore play three against teams already out of the race -- Delhi, Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab.

So, before they clash with strong contenders Chennai in their last match on May 18 before the play-offs, Bangalore would look to consolidate their position in these matches.

However, it may be tricky for Bangalore since laggards Delhi, who have nothing at stake, may come up with a surprise performance on their day and may spoil their chances.

Batting is not a worry for Bangalore. They have been consistently scoring in the vicinity of 200 while batting first and have chased the targets easily with Chris Gayle in his explosive best form.

But the way they were blown away by the Miller storm in their last match against Kings XI Punjab, bowling is certainly a concern for them.

For the four matches in a row, the Bangalore side have conceded more than 170 runs -- against Kings XI Punjab, Rajasthan, Pune Warriors and Mumbai Indians.

West Indies paceman Ravi Rampaul has been brilliant upfront and at the death overs but R P Singh and R Vinay Kumar have proved expensive.

The best thing for Bangalore bowlers is that they are up against a struggling batting line-up.

The Teams (From):

Delhi Daredevils: Mahela Jayawardene (C), Virender Sehwag, David Warner, Umesh Yadav, Manpreet Juneja, Ashish Nehra, Naman Ojha, Irfan Pathan, Andre Russell, Kedar Jadhav, Ajit Agarkar, Johan Botha, Unmukt Chand, Morne Morkel, Shabaz Nadeem, Ben Rohrer, Royston Dias, Muralitharan Gautam, Sidharth Kaul, Jeevan Mendis, Yogesh Nagar, Sujeet Nayak, Pavan Negi, Aristh Singhvi, Roelof van der Merwe, Venugopal Rao and Gulam Bodi.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (C), A B de Villiers, Abhimanyu Mithun, Abhinav Mukund, Andrew McDonald, Arun Karthik, Cheteshwar Pujara, Chris Gayle, Christopher Barnwell, Daniel Christian, Daniel Vettori, Harshal Patel, Jaidev Unadkat, K P Appanna, Karun Nair, Mayank Agarwal, Moises Henriques, Murali Kartik, Muttiah Muralitharan, Pankaj Singh, Prasanth Parameswaran, R Vinay Kumar, Ravi Rampaul, Rudra Pratap Singh, S Aravind, Sandeep Warrier, Saurabh Tiwary, Sheldon Jackson, Sunny Sohal, Syed Mohammad, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Vijay Zol, Zaheer Khan.

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IPL 6: KKR stay afloat as Pune limp to 11th defeat in IPL 6

Pune: Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders scored a convincing 46-run win over an ever-struggling Pune Warriors here on Thursday, to keep alive their outside hopes of qualifying for the play-off stage of the ongoing Pepsi Indian Premier League.


Opting to bat, KKR first rode on skipper Gautam Gambhir`s 50 and a late surge by Ryan ten Doeschate (31 off 21) to post a challenging 152 for six, and then dished out a clinical bowling performance to bowl out Pune for 106 in 19.3 overs.

By virtue of this win, KKR has moved up to 10 points from 12 games. But in order to stand in with an outside chance of making it to the play-offs, the defending champions need to win all their remaining three games.

Pune witnessed a horrible start to their run chase as their batsmen found the going tough against a disciplined KKR attack and scored just 41 runs for the loss of three wickets at the halfway stage.

Pune lost skipper Aaron Finch, star player Yuvraj Singh and Udit Birla in quick succession.

While Finch was bowled by Jacques Kallis (2/27), Yuvraj nicked an away going Laxipathy Balaji (3/19) delivery to Manvinder Bisla behind the stumps.

Birla`s stay at the crease was a struggle which finally came to an end when Iqbal Abdulla (2/26) went through his defence.

Robin Uthappa (31 off 35) tried hard to hung in there but the ever-climbing asking rate finally took its toll on him. He was caught by Gambhir at backward point off Abdullah.

Angelo Mathews played a rearguard 28-ball 40-run knock but that was not enough to save Pune from slumping to its 11th defeat in the tournament.

Mathews decorated his innings with four huge sixes before perishing in search of quick runs.

Earlier, Pune wasted a good start by leaking runs in the death overs to allow Kolkata Knight Riders post the challenging total.

KKR were in a spot of bother at 99 for five at one stage, but Pune bowlers gave away a whopping 53 runs in the final four overs to help the visitors cross the 150-run mark.

KKR reached fifty in quick time after electing to bat, thanks mainly to Gambhir (50 off 44).

Pune bowlers, however, managed to put brakes on KKR`s scoring by picking up wickets at regular intervals.

Bisla (12) was the first to depart stumped by Mahesh Rawat off Bhuvneshwar Kumar (3/25).

Off-spinner Parveez Rasool (1/23), the first cricketer from Jammu and Kashmir to play in the IPL, leaked nine runs in his opening over.

But Rasool came back strongly in the next over and dismissed big man Kallis to pick up his first wicket of the tournament. Kallis was caught by Mathews at short cover of a fuller delivery from the off-spinner.

Gambhir, however, was steady at the other end and notched up his fifty in 43 balls with the help of six boundaries.

But Mitchell Marsh`s (2/7) two wickets in two overs changed the equation. Marsh first accounted for Eoin Morgan, who scored a run-a-ball 15, and then an over later he picked up the crucial wicket of Gambhir, caught by Mathews.

Yusuf Pathan too did not help his side`s cause as he departed cheaply. He edged one to wicket-keeper Rawat off Kumar while going for a booming cut.

With KKR in a tight corner, it took a quickfire knock from ten Doeschate, who played his first IPL match this year, to bail the visitors out.

Ten Doeschate used his long handle to great effect and smashed Mathews for a six and two fours to pick up 17 runs off the 17th over.

Ten Doeschate and Manoj Tiwary added 38 runs in 3 overs to provide some momentum to KKR`s innings.

Ten Doeschate finally perished, caught by Krishnakant Uphadyay off Kumar but not before decorating his 21-ball knock with three fours and one six.

Towards the end, Tiwary (15 not out off 10) and Rajat Bhatia (13 not out off 5) played short cameos to help KKR.

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