IPL 2017: It's KKR's game to lose vs down and out RCB today

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) couldn't have picked a better time to come to Bangalore for their away fixture against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)

Bangalore boy Robin Uthappa is in fine form for KKR this season

Bangalore: Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) couldn't have picked a better time to come to Bangalore for their away fixture against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). 

Placed second in the points table and one win away from an assured spot in the play offs, they will find the weather here to be not much cooler than back home in Kolkata but with their opponents being anything but red hot with their form, the crucial win beckons.

As it is when the two teams met last, RCB were blown away for the lowest-ever total in IPL history. Also since then, while the lowest total hasn't been bettered (or should it be worsened), RCB's famed batting line-up has time and again come a cropper, be it at home or away.

Toss not relevant
In a way, the toss has lost relevance with RCB, for if they bat first they don't score much and while chasing, their strength in recent years, any total seems beyond them, like it happened most recently on Friday night when they failed to get past Kings XI Punjab's modest 138.

Then again, Gautam Gambhir, easily the best captain in the IPL for a few seasons now, is experienced enough to know that in the T20 format, it doesn't take much to change things around. So he will have his boys on their toes and of course he will, as usual, be on the watch for that opportunity to place a few men, himself included, in close in positions just as a way to needle the batsmen if not having them caught there.

Formidable Knights
That Gambhir employs such fields in the shortest format of the game certainly serves to make games involving KKR more interesting. Throw in a couple of mystery spinners in Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav, two really quick bowlers in Umesh Yadav and Nathan Coulter-Nile, add in the Karnataka batting duo of Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey, along with Gambhir himself, and you know why KKR are a must-watch side, be it with ball or bat.

Can RCB match up, let's wait and watch.

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