Rajasthan Royals vs Royal Challengers Bangalore 05/04/2022

Two impressive wins out of two games mean that Rajasthan Royals are now the form team of the Indian Premier League 2022, which is a sentence that seems weird even while writing it because of how they’ve fared in the last three seasons (all bottom two finishes). Their third fixture sees them take on Royal Challengers Bangalore on April 5 (Tuesday) at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. The match is to begin at 7:30pm IST.

Teams Status

Rajasthan Royals:

Two straight matches, two straight mammoth scores posted and two straight Ws collected. Rajasthan Royals are on a roll.

Their batting is clicking beautifully. The win over Sunrisers Hyderabad was a team effort but the 193 they posted against Mumbai was the doing of their England star Jos Buttler, who hit an all too familiar 100 off just 68 balls.

Then, their well balanced bowling attack took care of the rest. The underrated aspect of their twin wins has been the fact that almost all their bowlers are bowling well. It hasn’t been a one-man show at all.

Royal Challengers Bangalore:

Royal Challengers Bangalore have played two matches so far. They lost the first one despite their batters’ superb batting and they won the second one despite their batters’ horrible batting.

Against Punjab Kings, they posted a mammoth 205 for 2, but struggled to track down a mere 129 in the win over Kolkata Knight Riders, and did so in the final over with just three wickets in hand.

RCB are coming off of a five-day break so they must be fresh for this fixture.

Fast bowlers Jason Behrendorff and Josh Hazlewood are available to be picked but RCB are expected to stick with the overseas options already in the line-up.

RCB made one change recently, swapping injured Luvnith Sisodia for Rajat Patidar but the swap isn’t big enough to cause any major impact.

What Do the Sportsbooks Say?

Brand	Rajasthan Royals	Royal Challengers Bangalore
	2.08	1.70
	2.144	1.768
	2.16	1.70

Despite Rajasthan’s hot form to start the season with, Bangalore are the favourites for this IPL fixture. Parimatch has Rajasthan priced at 2.08 and Bangalore at 1.70. Paripesa has Rajasthan available for 2.144 and Bangalore for 1.768. Sportsbet has the best odds on Rajasthan (2.16), while it has Bangalore priced at 1.70.

Tipster’s Angle

Tip: Jos Buttler to score more than 26.5 runs @ 1.87

Joss Buttler is in superb form and has covered the spread in each of his first two matches of this campaign. In the last game, he did a little more than that, going on to hit a ton. With him in such scary form, it’s a no-brainer to back him to do more of the same. The odds for this play have been sourced from Parimatch.

Tip: Virat Kohli to score more than 27.5 runs @ 1.87

When these two sides played at the same venue last September, Devdutt Padikkal (then with Bangalore) put on a show with a ton. Padikkal now plays for Rajasthan and does not open. Kohli still bats one-down for Bangalore and in the Sept match just mentioned, he had also smashed an unbeaten 47-ball 72. Therefore, we’re backing him here to cover the spread of 27.5 runs. The odds have been sourced from Parimatch.

Conclusion

Bangalore have a winning record in this fixture, winning 12 and losing 10. However, these two teams are so different post-auction that comparisons to prior games has become an academic exercise only. We’d back Rajasthan to make it three in three here.

Zohaib Ahmed

12:59, 5 Apr 2022

Senior Author

Zohaib Ahmed

Senior Author

12:59, 5 Apr 2022

Zohaib Ahmed is a sports journalist whose profession is to report and edit but whose passion is to predict and bet. He’s been in the industry for more than a decade and has worked/written for various bookmakers/tipsters. His expertise is in cricket, football, MMA, boxing and basketball.