RCB vs PBKS, IPL 2022 preview: Race to the playoffs enters home stretch – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

The Royal Challengers Bangalore will be up against Punjab Kings at Brabourne Stadium on Friday evening. With the playoffs battle becoming more intense, both sides would look to grab two crucial points. RCB have 14 points under their belt with two games to go and it’s a pretty straight forward equation for them. Just go out there and win!

Faf Du Plessis celebrates with Harshal Patel after RCB beat CSK. Sportzpics

The Punjab team on the other side, is at 8th position but they still have three matches left. In the 11 games that they have played so far, Punjab have 10 points under their belt. The Mayank Agarwal-led side can make this race more interesting and exciting with wins in all three matches.

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Faf du Plessis: The new RCB skipper Faf du Plessis has had a decent tournament so far after notching up 389 runs in 12 matches. The right-hander has shown good form in the last couple of matches and in fact scored an unbeaten fifty in the last encounter. Faf does have some extra workload on himself as Virat Kohli is going through a lean patch. Though he has scored a half-century but Kohli’s scoring-rate isn’t that great in the matches where he has been among runs.

Du Plessis needs to continue with his form to provide RCB with a steady start. The rest can be done by Dinesh Karthik in the final phase of the game. The wicket-keeper batter has been brutal with his batting and has been consistently chipping in with some quick runs.

Shikhar Dhawan: Punjab Kings opener Shikhar Dhawan too has similar role to play and that is to provide a good start at top of the order. The left-handed batter has scored 381 runs in 11 matches so far in the competition including three fifties. The Punjab side would only want him to be among runs and lay a foundation for other batters to score runs at a brisk pace. Liam Livingstone and Jitesh Sharma are probably the best suited ones for this job.

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Rajat Patidar: A bit of a tweak in the top-order has certainly worked for RCB despite Virat Kohli’s bad form. Rajat Patidar has played four games for the franchise in this season and he already has a fifty and a 48 to his name. The right-handed batter’s contributions at the top has given the opportunity to express themselves to best of their abilities.

Jitesh Sharma: Punjab Kings’ Jitesh Sharma is certainly another find of this IPL 2022. The batter posses an ability to chip in with runs at a brilliant strike rate. With him and Livingstone around, the other Punjab batters can be released of the pressure of scoring quick runs.

Match-up

This edition of the Indian Premier League has been about some young fast bowlers (though the wicket-takers’ list is topped by some spinners). Someone, like SRH’s Umran Malik has troubled the batters with his express pace while CSK’s Mukesh Choudhary and Simarjeet Singh have had batters in a spot of bother with the movement of the ball. Something that we saw against MI despite them chasing a pretty low total.

But the express pace has also come as a curse at some occasions as the batters have capitalized on it to go for their strokes.

With someone like Liam Livingstone in PBKS’ ranks, RCB need someone who can deceive the batter with pace and this one bowler is Harshal Patel. The right-arm bowler’s successful run in the last and even in this IPL has a lot to do the way he bowls in the death overs. If he can continue to use his slower ones to perfection, the PBKS will find it difficult to score runs in death overs.

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