IPL 2014: Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders match preview

Chris Gayle: Will he play?

Royal Challengers Bangalore could not have asked for a better start to IPL 2014. With two consecutive wins, Bangalore will be eager to obtain a hat-trick of wins when they face Kolkata Knight Riders in their 3rd match in Sharjah on Thursday.

RCB is looking strong in all departments of the game. They have won matches under two strikingly different conditions. Virat Kohli is a captain who leads from the front. He is terrific with the bat and active on the ground. RCB’s top order looks settled with Parthiv Patel showing some promising performance in the last match against Mumbai. With players like AB De Villiers and Yuvraj Singh, RCB only looks stronger.

On the bowling front, RCB is lucky to have bowlers like Yuzvendra Chahal, Mitchell Starc and Varun Aaron. All of them have proved helpful to RCB.

Kolkata on the other hand has a few things to worry about. Thier captain, Gautam Gambhir has not played up to his potential. However, they have players like Manish Pandey and Robin Uthappa (who were a part of Bangalore initially) perform well for them. With all-rounder Jacques Kallis, it will not be difficult for KKR to win their second match of the tournament.

“I am playing less cricket, so I can put my body on the line. I do not have too many years left, I just want to have some fun,” Kallis said.

The bowling department may be an issue of concern for KKR as their bowlers like Vinay Kumar, Shakib-Al-Hassan and Morne Morkel have not delivered as expected.

KKR will hope that they can put together their batting, bowling and fielding in order to outplay RCB.

However, the bigger question on everyone’s mind will be, “Is Chris Gayle going to play the match tonight?’

Well, we will have to wait and watch.