IPL 2017, RPS vs RCB: Face Off

After getting back to form with three consecutive victories, Rising Pune Supergiant suffered a setback against Kolkata in their last game. Today they face Royal Challengers Bangalore at their home ground, MCA stadium, and with back to back home games coming up, Steve Smith has called for his men to make their home ground a fortress.

When these two teams met in Bangalore earlier this season, Virat Kohli's boys could not chase down 161 as a brilliant bowling display by Pune helped them to victory.

Extra Cover: IPL 2017, RPS vs RCB: 5 winning factors

For today's game, RCB are given a big boost as Tymal Mills will return to the starting lineup after missing the last match. On paper, Bangalore still have a chance of reaching the playoffs and they might finally kickstart their horrid campaign.

For Pune, Ben Stokes is out of contention because of a grade one muscle tear he suffered against the Mumbai Indians. The Supergiant are also trailing 2-1 in the head to head record as the win in Bangalore was their first over the Royal Challengers.

Here, we statistically compare the two expected starting lineups of both the sides in order to find a favourite for this encounter. The comparison made is only based on the IPL career stats with the internationals not being counted for this head to head comparison.

Rising Pune Spuergiant	Royal Challengers Bangalore	Who’s better?
Ajinkya Rahane	Virat Kohli	RCB
Runs- 2880, Avg- 34.29, SR- 121.11	Runs- 4274, Avg- 37.82, SR- 130.27
Rahul Tripathi	Chris Gayle	N/A
Runs- 216, Avg- 36, SR- 154.29	Runs- 3578, Avg- 42.09, SR- 151.8
Steve Smith	AB De Villiers	RCB
Runs- 1506, Avg- 38.62, SR- 135.8	Runs- 3407, Avg- 39.16, SR- 148.45
Faf du Plesis	Mandeep Singh	RPS
Runs- 1295, Avg- 30.12, SR- 127.96	Runs- 997, Avg- 19.17, SR- 121
MS Dhoni	Kedar Jadhav	RPS
Runs- 3423, Avg- 38.46, SR- 138.02	Runs- 832, Avg- 25.21, SR- 137.75
Manoj Tiwary	Pawan Negi	RPS
Runs- 1462, Avg- 29.24, SR- 116.68	Runs- 276, Avg- 17.25, SR- 130.81
Dan Christian	Tymal Mills	N/A
Wkts- 22, Avg- 33.86, Eco- 7.95	Wkts- 5, Avg- 30.6, Eco- 8.58
Washington Sundar	Aniket Choudhary	N/A
Wkt- 1, Avg- 77, Eco- 7.7	Wkt- 1, Avg- 76, Eco- 12.67
Imran Tahir	Yuzvendra Chahal	RCB
Wkts- 39, Avg- 22.74, Eco- 8.58	Wkts- 66, Avg- 21.58, Eco- 7.85
Jaydev Unadkat	Sreenath Aravind	Even-Stevens
Wkts- 38, Avg- 29.45, Eco- 8.45	Wkts- 44, Avg- 21.57, Eco- 8.07
Shardul Thakur	Samuel Badree	N/A
Wkts- 5, Avg- 39.4, Eco- 9.77	Wkts- 10, Avg- 23.4, Eco- 7.09

*Players with less than 15 matches under their belt are not considered for the player comparison

Rising Pune Supergiant 3-3 Royal Challengers Bangalore

Though it’s looking close on paper, the RCB big guns are terribly out of form and will be up against a spirited Pune side who have MS Dhoni and Ajinkya Rahane scoring runs freely. RCB need a big batting effort today if they are to win this game.