MATCH: Royal Challengers Bangalore v South Australia Redbacks
DATE: Wednesday, October 5, 2011
TIME: 2000 hours IST (1430 hours GMT)
VENUE: M Chinnaswamy in Bangalore
Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on the South Australian Redbacks in a game that assumes must-win proportions for both the sides. This is the last game before the Champions League T20 knockouts.
Past Record:
Royal Challengers Bangalore had a poor beginning to the tournament, when they went down to both, the Warriors and the Kolkata Knight Riders. Then, out of nowhere, they gave a performance to remember against the Somerset side, winning by 51 runs.
South Australian Redbacks opened with a loss to the Warriors in a rather one-sided match, before getting one back against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Then, the match against Somerset was rained off to leave the Redbacks with three points from their three games.
Side-effect:
If Royal Challengers (7/10 at
Bwin) win this one, they will end with four points. But that may not be enough if Somerset beat Warriors and Bangalore don’t win by a big enough margin to overtake the Warriors on the net run-rate. If South Australia (11/8 at
Totesport) win this one, they are definitely through to the semi-final.
If either team loses, they will go out of the tournament.
Team News:
Bangalore have been making one or two changes each game to get the right combination and to protect themselves against the injuries. In the last game, they finally got something right, but whether it was to do with the playing 11 or the teeing off from Chris Gayle (5/2 at
Blue Square) is a tad debatable. Gayle’s 86 ensured that the Royal Challengers Bangalore had more than 200 on board.
However, much like Gayle’s batting clicked for the first time in the tournament, it was the bowling which got the right lines and lengths after two misfires. Dirk Nannes, Sreenath Aravind and Daniel Vettori, all went for less seven per over and picked up five wickets between them.
South Australia will have the same problem as the Somerset side had against Bangalore – no cricket played for the last eight days. Ever since South Australia defeated the Kolkata Knight Riders on September 27, they have had one-rained off game, where not even a ball was bowled. This could prove crucial in a must-win scenario against a side which seems to have gotten back the momentum.
Who is hot?
Michael Klinger (7/2 at
BetFred) and Daniel Harris (4/1 at
Boylesports) will look to give their side a start to match up to the efforts of Gayle and T Dilshan. Bangalore will look for more of the wicket-taking, quick deliveries from Dirk Nannes.
Prediction:
Bangalore will go one up on South Australia.
