What

Sport is unpredictable. Sport can be a rollercoaster. Sport can be cruel. The Gujarat Lions and Royal Challengers Bangalore occupied the first and second places respectively at the end of the league season in 2016. A year later, they are bunched together yet again, but at the other end of the table; the Lions occupy seventh place in the eight-team table, while RCB occupy the floor. The Lions have one win from their first four matches, while RCB have a solitary win from five outings so far this season.

The Gujarat Lions clearly prefer chasing and their only win this season was when they had the opportunity to chase. What should concern coach Brad Hodge and the rest of the Lions team management is that no matter all the riches in the batting department, the bowlers have failed to defend reasonable totals; the Lions have lost matches despite posting 183, 135 and 176.

RCB need to find something that can light the ignition and get them going. The team motto is “Play Bold”; but in the last match against Rising Pune Supergiant, the batsmen – especially in the middle order – were far from bold. The team has now lost three on the bounce, and appear confused about the combination they want to work with.

They have used 19 different players so far and have fielded a different opening pair in each of their five matches. The team is not being helped by the fact that their overseas all-rounder – Shane Watson – has not done anything of note with bat and ball; the Australian may have a very impressive record in international cricket and in the IPL over the years, but so far this season he has scored at less than a run-a-ball and has leaked runs at 10.30 runs per over. RCB are better off keeping ViratKohli, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers in the top three, and hope KedarJadhav can fill the role played by KL Rahul last season.

When

18 April 2017, 2000 Hrs IST

Where

SCA Stadium, Rajkot

The Protagonists

Between them, Gayle, Kohli, de Villiers, McCullum, Smith, Raina and Aaron Finch together have a total of 1705 T20 caps, 48530 T20 runs & 40 T20 hundreds. Does one need to say more?

On the bowling front, the spinners will possibly have a role to play; YuzvendraChahal, Samuel Badree and Ravindra Jadeja will have the difficult task of keeping the batsmen quiet.

Match within the match

AB de Villiers’ struggles against left-arm spinners are well documented. In this match, the South African will come across one of the canniest bowlers in the world – Ravindra Jadeja. The contest between de Villiers, who has so far scored 8 runs off 16 deliveries against left-arm sinners this season, and Jadeja promises to be exciting.

Head to Head

Overall: Matches played – 3, Gujarat Lions Won – 1, Royal Challengers Bangalore Won – 2

Trivia

In the three matches he played against the Gujarat Lions last season, ViratKohli made 100*, 109 & 0.

Royal Challengers Bangalore had the highest boundary percentage last season; 60.78% of their runs were scored through boundaries. This season, their boundary percentage is the lowest among all teams – 53.92%.

6 of the 7 IPL matches played at the SCA Stadium have been won by the team chasing.

Gujarat Lions have the poorest economy rate of all teams this season; they are the only team with an economy rate about 9. Their overall economy rate this season is 9.62.

If he takes the field on Tuesday, Suresh Raina will be playing his 250th T20 match. Among Indian cricketers, only MS Dhoni has played more – 253 T20 matches.

Against left-arm spinners, RCB have scored at a rate of 3.85 runs per over this season.

What Next

Both teams’ next fixtures are away games against the Kolkata Knight Riders. The Gujarat Lions are scheduled to play at the Eden Gardens on April 21, while Royal Challengers Bangalore will enjoy a four-day break before they are seen in action at the Eden Gardens on April 23.