IPL 2024: Challengers, Knight Riders look to maintain winning momentum

Royal Challengers Bengaluru take on Kolkata Knight Riders in a high-voltage contest of the IPL 2024 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Friday.

Bengaluru: The floodlights hadn’t yet taken full effect at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Thursday evening, but a couple of stars were lighting things up in ways only they could. 

Kolkata Knight Riders’ Andre Russell and Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Virat Kohli were batting on two separate practice pitches in preparation for their Indian Premier League game on Friday night.

What unfolded for close to 20 minutes was carnage with Russell clearing the roof on a couple of occasions while Kohli, who had arrived to practice earlier than the rest of his team-mates, kept clearing the ropes with absurd ease. 

The reason this session, and that level of hitting, assumed significance was that these two batters of contrasting styles could well be the protagonists on the morrow, and, that’s not only because they looked this good at the ‘nets’. 

Russell was at his marauding best in Kolkata’s opener where he bludgeoned 64 from 24 balls in his side’s four-run win. 

Kohli, meanwhile, was slow in RCB’s opener against Chennai Super Kings with 21 from 20, but in the next game against Punjab Kings, he got a feel for the ball and an improved strike rate, scoring 77 from 49 balls in RCB’s nervy four-wicket win.

These narrow victories for the teams also showcase the fact that they have plenty of chinks to iron out. Luckily, it’s early enough in the tournament to get the tune-up up to speed by the time the business end comes around. 

For RCB, the elephant in their room is their bowling. As much as the management would like to defend it, the first two games were not a good look for them.
They couldn’t defend 174 against Chennai, and gave away 176 against Punjab after early control. 

If one had to pull up one particular bowler as being emblematic of this pedestrian stretch, it would be Alzarri Joseph, and they might want to consider bringing on English paceman Reece Topley. 

In fact, the four foreign recruits RCB have utilised this season have been rather beige, including skipper Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell and Cameroon Green.
What’s worked for RCB, though, is their middle and lower middle with Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, and ‘Impact Player’ in Mahipal Lomror. 

Kolkata wear a relatively more balanced look to them, but they will want to get their batters in order, especially those plying their wares between Phil Salt and Ramandeep Singh at No.5.

But what they lack with the bat, or rather have in one game, they more than makeup for their bowlers. With Mitchell Starc at the helm, KKR have Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Russell and Suyash Sharma to turn their arms over stringently.

That line-up will mostly be tested given the matchbox dimensions of this field, but should the relaid pitch play sticky again, they will be handful for RCB to tackle. The same for KKR. 

This then is why it’s safe to assume that Russell and Kohli, both of whom are capable of rendering conditions a moot point, will hog the limelight.