Teams Status
Kolkata Knight Riders
Kolkata Knight Riders were not having the best of times when the league went on a hiatus back in May. After starting the tournament with a win, the Shah Rukh Khan-owned franchise won just one of their next six matches and are now found towards the foot of the table, above only Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Batting has been a problem for KKR this IPL, with Nitish Rana being their top scorer in the tournament. He, too, only has 201 runs at an average of 28.71 – hardly impressive numbers. The thing hurting them the most had been the abysmal form of names such as Eoin Morgan and Shubman Gill, both of whom are averaging 15.33 and 18.85 runs an innings in this edition of the tournament.
Among the bowlers, Pat Cummins is their best one, but while he features among the tournament’s top 10 wicket takers, he only has nine wickets in seven outings – which is not a haul that can be expected to fire up any side to an ascent up the table. To make matters worse, the Aussie has opted out of IPL. Tim Southee has been recruited in his place.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
RCB, who often do well during the round-robin stage, have pretty much done the same again. The Virat Kohli-captained side sits third in the standings, with five wins out of seven matches and 10 points to their name.
The zero-time IPL winners were quick off the blocks, winning four on the bounce before losing two of their next three, which pegged them back a little.
While their batting has been pretty solid so far in the tournament, it did fail in their last game though, managing just 145-8 in response to Punjab Kings’ 179-5.
One encouraging sign for RCB will be the form of AB de Villiers, who hit a century in a warm-up game recently.
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