RCB have been branded as a top heavy outfit for years but that appears to be changing with the likes of Jitesh Sharma realising their potential in the middle-order.
Jitesh played the best innings of his IPL career on Tuesday night and his confidence will be sky high going into the play-offs.
It would be important from the team’s point of view that Phil Salt is at his destructive best in the powerplay and Virat Kohli keeps batting like he has been through the season, racking up fifties with ridiculous ease.
RCB will take positives out of their win over Punjab Kings at this venue in the league stage.
The pitch has been rather unpredictable with 200 scored only once in the first innings of the four games played here.
But Punjab Kings will have the belief of winning from the brink at their home ground having defended 111 against KKR last month.
The stakes will be high but both teams will treat the game as a stepping stone to their ultimate goal.
Squads:
Punjab Kings: Nehal Wadhera, Harnoor Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Musheer Khan, Pyla Avinash, Prabhsimran Singh, Vishnu Vinod, Josh Inglis, Marcus Stoinis, Praveen Dubey, Priyansh Arya, Azmatullah Omarzai, Aaron Hardie, Harpreet Brar, Suryansh Shedge, Shashank Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Xavier Bartlett, Kuldeep Sen, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Yash Thakur, Mitchell Owen, Kyle Jamieson.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar (c), Swastik Chikara, Jitesh Sharma, Philip Salt, Manoj Bhandage, Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Liam Livingstone, Romario Shepherd, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Nuwan Thushara, Yash Dayal, Rasikh Dar Salam, Suyash Sharma, Mohit Rathee, Abhinandan Singh, Mayank Agarawal, Blessing Muzarabani, Tim Seifert.
Match starts 7.30 PM.
