What

Match 55 of Pepsi IPL – the penultimate fixture of the league season – will see the Royal Challengers Bangalore pitted against the Delhi Daredevils.

RCB, with 15 points in the kitty, have the opportunity to stake claim for a place in the top two positions. Virat Kohli’s side has upped the intensity just when it has mattered; after winning just one of their first four matches, they have since won six of their nine matches, one of which was washed out. In their most-recent match, they outclassed the Sunrisers Hyderabad in a rain-affected bash in Hyderabad. Chris Gayle smashed his way to 35 in 10 deliveries, while Virat Kohli stayed to the end and steered his team past the home.

The Delhi Daredevils, with five wins in 13 matches, have fared much better than they have done in recent seasons. They have defeated tough opponents – like Sunrisers Hyderabad, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings – but have not been able to string together a series of wins. In their most-recent outing, they outclassed table-toppers Chennai Super Kings – performing admirably with both bat and ball. They will be keen to carry their form in the match against CSK into this match and hope to sign off with a victory.

When

17 May 2015, 4p.m. IST

Where

M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru

The Protagonists

A flat pitch, quick outfield and short boundaries means one has generally seen a run feast at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Therefore the pressure will be on Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers to cause the bulk of the damage with the bat, while DD will look towards the three left-handers in their ranks – Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy and Yuvraj Singh to find the boundaries frequently.

On the bowling front, how much damage Mitchell Starc causes in his four overs – and how much DD realise from those overs, could have a significant impact on the outcome of the match. DD will also hope the left-armer in their lineup – Zaheer Khan – can keep the explosive RCB top order quiet.

Contests to look-forward to

Zaheer Khan has a reputation of being a dangerous customer when bowling to left-handers; off his 610 wickets in international cricket, 237 are of left-handers. In the IPL, off his 82 wickets, 34 are of left-hand batsmen. It is therefore that his battle against Chris Gayle promises to be interesting; he has dismissed the Jamaican on eight occasions in international cricket and twice in IPL.

Previous Meetings

At the end of the 2010 season of the IPL, the head to head between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils stood at 5-1 in favour of the latter. Since then, RCB have dominated – emerging victorious in every one of the eight meetings, as a result of which the head-to-head now stands at 9-5 in favour of RCB. In matches in Bengaluru, the hosts have a slender 3-2 win-loss record against the Delhi Daredevils.

When these two teams met in Delhi earlier this season, RCB demolished the hosts bowling them out for 95. Chris Gayle (62 from 40 balls) and Virat Kohli (35 from 23 balls) then completed the formalities, helping their team to a resounding 10-wicket win.

Trivia

Among Zaheer Khan’s seven wickets in Pepsi IPL 2015 are the scalps of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Brendon McCullum and MS Dhoni.

In the 62 innings he has batted for RCB in the IPL, Chris Gayle has scored 2667 runs – which equate to 26.89% of the runs scored by the team.

RCB has realised 8 scores of 50 or more from Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers so far in Pepsi IPL 2015. No other RCB batsman has scored a half-century. In contrast, 7 different batsmen have scored half-centuries for Delhi Daredevils in the season.

Of the eight batsmen who have scored more than 400 runs in Pepsi IPL 2015, three of them – Virat Kohli (480), AB de Villiers (446) and Chris Gayle (422) – belong to RCB.

What Next

Both teams will complete their league stage assignments of Pepsi IPL 2015. RCB - who are one of the teams in contention for a place in the Playoffs – will know what the future holds for them at the conclusion of the league stage. If they find themselves in the top two positions at the end of the league season, they will travel to Mumbai to compete in Qualifier 1. If they finish in the third or fourth position, they will head to Pune to compete in the Eliminator.