Punjab Kings will lock horns against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the 58th match of the ongoing Indian Premier League 2024 at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala on Thursday. While RCB won their previous match against Gujarat Titans comprehensively by four wickets, PBKS suffered a 28-run loss against defending champions Chennai Super Kings.
Both of these teams have managed four wins in the 11 matches they have played and their hopes of qualifying for the playoff are slim. PBKS would be certainly wondering what could have been if they had won some of their close matches.
On the other hand, RCB has adopted an aggressive approach and it has paid dividends as they have won their last three matches. But RCB could only manage a solitary win in their first eight matches of the tournament and thus they stand at the brink of elimination gates.
Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli played aggressively at the top of the order against Gujarat Titans. Mohammed Siraj was also brilliant with the new ball as he bagged two wickets and conceded only 29 runs in his quota of four overs.
Meanwhile, PBKS bowlers did a good job in restricting CSK to 167 but they could only manage 139-9 in the run-chase as none of their batters could cross the 30-run mark.
Match Prediction: Royal Challengers Bengaluru will enter the contest as favorites against Punjab Kings.
RCB FULL SQUAD IPL 2024
Faf du Plessis (c), Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Cameron Green, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Swapnil Singh, Saurav Chauhan.
PBKS IPL 2024 SQUAD
Wicketkeepers: Jonny Bairstow (ENG), Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma.
Batters: Shikhar Dhawan, Harpreet Bhatia, Rilee Rossouw (SA), Shashank Singh.
All-rounders: Liam Livingstone (ENG), Atharva Taide, Rishi Dhawan, Sam Curran (ENG), Sikandar Raza (ZIM), Shivam Singh, Chris Woakes (ENG), Ashutosh Sharma, Vishwanath Singh, Tanay Thyagarajan, Harshal Patel.
Bowlers: Harpreet Brar, Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada (SA), Nathan Ellis (AUS), Rahul Chahar, Vidhwath Kaverappa, Prince Choudhary.