Image Credit- BCCI
With just two points from seven games and five straight losses, RCB is struggling to stay afloat. They are at the bottom of the standings, and a loss to KKR on Sunday would put them in danger of going out.
Their hitters, particularly Sunil Narine, will need to prevail against KKR’s spinners in order to prevent that.
For many years, Virat Kohli led the RCB batting charge, but in the last few years, spin has shown to be his worst enemy in T20 cricket. He has a 113.52 strike rate against spin since the beginning of 2020. He has hit at a pace of 145.79 within the same time.
But in the IPL 2024, Kohli appears to have rectified this problem in some way as he has scored at a far more reasonable 130.09 against spin. Even when these two teams faced off earlier in the event, he easily defeated Narine (21 off 12). However, it won’t be simple at Eden Gardens, particularly if the pitch is a little slow. Not too good is Kohli’s total record against Narine, which stands at 162 runs off 157 balls and four wickets lost.
It’s not just Kohli either. In contrast to Narine, Faf du Plessis and Dinesh Karthik have also had difficulty scoring runs. Karthik has a strike rate of 119.29 versus Du Plessis’s 77.14. Narine has taken seven wickets at a superb economy of 6.87 in six games so far this season.’
With the bat, Narine has excelled just as much. Despite the two-bouncer restriction, he has scored 276 runs at a strike rate of 187.75 after returning to the opener position. In the past, short balls from quick bowlers would get him out. Even though he hasn’t always appeared to be in charge while facing the short ball, he has persevered and made the opposition pay. RCB experienced a taste of such during their prior encounter with KKR.
Earlier in the season, KKR thrashed RCB by seven wickets at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Batting first, RCB posted 182 for 6 with Kohli scoring an unbeaten 83 off 59 balls. In response, Narine smashed 47 off 22 balls and Venkatesh Iyer 50 off 30 as KKR chased down the target in the 17th over.