Kings XI Punjab visit M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru for tonight's clash against Royal Challengers Bangalore, which will also be their 10th match of 2017 Indian Premier League.
Having secured eight points from nine games in the ongoing season so far, the fifth-placed Kings XI unit will be looking to keep the pressure on the top-four as they trail fourth-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad by five points with two games in hand over David Warner's men.
Glenn Maxwell-led team is heading into the match on the back of a five-day break following their 10-wicket win over Delhi Daredevils at home on 30 April. With Royal Challengers not having clinched a win in their last five outings, Kings XI should see tonight's match as a good opportunity to collect another two points.
Kings XI will also be confident, heading into today's match as they crushed Virat Kohli's men by eight wickets in their early-season meeting at Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore. Having won their last game by bowling out the Daredevils for just 67, Maxwell's unit will start as favourite to add to the hosts' woes.
With Sandeep Sharma performing consistently with the ball along with Varun Aaron and Axar Patel, Kings XI bowling unit will have the upper-hand over the struggling RCB batsmen. On the other hand, the hosts will be tempted to include big-hitting Chris Gayle at the expense of out-of-form Travis Head as the West Indian opener has a solid record against the Punjab-based outfit.
Maxwell bowled his full quote of four overs in their last game against Delhi and the part-time off-spinner will be tempted to share the spin attack with Axar as tweakers will be key to containing runs against the big-hitting RCB batsmen at Chinnaswamy.
Team News
RCB
Possible XI: Kohli (c), Gayle, Mandeep, De Villiers, Jadhav (wk), Watson, Negi, Milne, Aravind, Aniket, Chahal
KXIP
Possible XI: Maxwell (c), Guptill, Amla, Vohra, Marsh, Saha (wk), Mohit, Varun, Sandeep, Natarajan
