Royal Challengers Bangalore v Lucknow Super Giants Tips: RCB overseas duo to shine

• RCB looking to recover from a big loss

• Advantage to the chaser in Bangalore

• Hasaranga can come good at 3/1 on season debut

Monday April 10, 15:00
TV: Live on Sky Sports

RCB Team News

After a strong start in their first game, it was a case of 'same old RCB' in their second. Their bowlers let KKR off the hook after having them five wickets down. That included allowing Shardul Thakur, an aggressive and capable lower-middle order all-rounder but no world-beater, to blast 60 off 29.

David Willey (2-16) and Karn Sharma (2-26) were the only bowlers to come out with any credit, even the usually reliable Harshal Patel and Michael Bracewell both proving costly and going wicketless.

Despite chasing 205, they started well with Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis finding the boundary with ease but what followed after their dismissals was a proper old-school collapse.

Du Plessis' 23 ended up being the highest score, telling you all you need to know. Glenn Maxwell was bowled, Patel's promotion up the order resulted in nothing, Bracewell was caught reverse-sweeping; it just all went wrong.

Fans of RCB can point to the fact that there was no Hasaranga or Josh Hazlewood around to have reduced KKR to about 160; but you have to cope without your best players occasionally. That's why you have a proper football-style squad these days rather than 12 or 13 players to choose from.

Hasaranga is included in the Sportsbook markets but the word from the RCB management is that it depends on how he recovers from a flight from New Zealand as to whether he features. Unless he's struggling to keep his eyes open, they'll probably play him because they surely need him.

Possible XIDu Plessis, Kohli, Bracewell, Maxwell, Karthik, Shahbaz, Rawat, Willey/Hasaranga, Patel, Sharma, Deep.

LSG Team news

So far, so good.

Good news: they're two from three after a crushing win over SRH on Friday. Bad news: that win came over SRH. The Hyderabad side have been a big flop so far and if anyone was going to manage just 121/8 it was probably going to be them.

Still, Lucknow bowled beautifully to limit them to that sort of paltry total with Krunal Pandya the pick of them with 3-18, a reminder of his ability in this league, this time with the ball.

Amit Mishra, who many thought was done at this level aged 40, returned figures of 2-23.

Pandya followed up his superb bowling with a quickfire 34. KL Rahul hit 35 and they were home with four overs to spare.

So, two from three wins for LSG, who are look in good shape.

But they have a big decision coming up.

Quinton de Kock is too good a player to be left out now that he's available after international duty but who will make way?

Assuming Mark Wood returns, he'll come in for Romario Shepherd and de Kock will have to take the place of Kyle Mayers, Nicholas Pooran or Marcus Stoinis. Of those, Stoinis looks the most vulnerable, which would mean either Mayers or de Kock at three.

Let's see.

Possible XI: de Kock, Rahul, Mayers, Hooda, Krunal, Pooran, Badoni, Thakur, Unadkat, Bishnoi, Wood

Pitch report

Bangalore has a reputation for good wickets, small boundaries, and therefore big runs.

But maybe not as big as you'd think. The average first innnings score is just under 170, but you want to be chasing here with 44 out of 81 completed matches won by the chaser.

An average Powerplay score of 45.7 suggests it's not often teams get off to a real flyer, with the death overs the best time for batsmen to cash in.

How to play

These two played each other twice last season and on both occasions, RCB emerged victorious.

They defended 181/6 in last year's Group Stages and then beat LSG in the Eliminator after just about defending 207/4.

So advantage Bangalore in that regard but the market isn't taking that too seriously, making it evens the pair.

LSG look the better side, especially if there's no Hasaranga for RCB. A pre-toss back of Lucknow at 2.01/1 isn't a bad bet; but a better one would be to side with LSG at anything above 1.855/6, should they chase.

RCB Top Bowler

If Hasaranga plays, the 3/1 he's RCB top bowler will look big, whether he goes on to win, or not.

If he doesn't play, you get your money back.

He may be parachuted straight into the team with little rest and no time to acclimatise to conditions. Then again, that's factored into the price.

The truth is he's been playing so will be match fit, isn't the sort to need too much time to acclimatise and he was the second highest-wicket taker in the IPL last season, so these grounds and this league are no problem for him.

That he's one of the top three or four bowlers in the world in this format with a strike rate of 15.0 at domestic level suggest that 3/1 is too good to miss out on; especially given there's no obvious threat to him.

RCB Top Batsman

The cat is out of the bag regarding Michael Bracewell. We had him at 7/1 last time out thinking he'd bat at three. He did and with just 23 to beat, managed just 19, before that ill-fated reverse sweep.

He's now just 9/2 and there's no guarantee he'll bat at three again anyway.

But his shortening in price has led Maxwell to be eased out to 6/1.

Maxi is of course one of the great enigmas of T20 cricket.

But a place in the Top 4 of a somewhat suspect looking batting-line where his biggest threat is perhaps a go-slow innings from Virat Kohli denying him valuable crease time, means a price of 6/1 just looks too big.