Week 4 - Match 5 - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kings XI Punjab

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Form

RCB: LWW

KXIP: DWL

Pitch Conditions: A dry pitch with large cracks which will offer purchase for spinners. Some inconsistent bounce which will make quick bowlers a handle as well. Will probably be a low scoring a tight affair.

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Please post tactics below:

Not too bad a pitch for me, I have good enough batsmen to make a decent score here, and some good bowlers to defend it; Worried about Johnson and Broad though

Possible team:
Kieswetter
Gambhir
KP
Ganguly
Umar Akmal
Karthik/Chitnis
RTD
Bresnan
Gony/Balaji/Yadav
Sharma (R.)
Karthik

Bresnan will enjoy this pitch, as will my spinners, while the batting has plenty of experience to cope with the testing conditions...

that would be a good side for this game mfc

Pretty happy with the pitch, one more player i'm looking to bring in then my tactics will go up.

Gregers, is there any swing on this pitch?

wouldn't have thought so Liam, it says dry, so that usually means little swing, though there may be some reverse swing late in the innings I guess...

Yeah that's what I was thinking.

Bresnan does well when it reverse swings

I want it to reverse swing for Praveen.

Yep the pitch will reverse swing

Cracking.

Praveen I always had down as more of a conventional swing bowler than reverse swing? I need to think whether I want to play two spinners or three...

RCB- Probable line-up

1) Abhinav Mukund
2) Shaun Marsh
3) Manish Pandey
4) AB De Villiers
5) Ross Taylor
6) Ravrinda Jadeja
7) Mitchell Johnson
8) Stuart Broad
9) Amit Mishra
10) Praveen Kumar
11) Bhagrav Bhatt

RCB- Tactics

1) Abhinav Mukund
2) Shaun Marsh
3) Mohammad Kaif
4) Manish Pandey
5) AB De Villiers
6) Ravrinda Jadeja
7) Steve O'Keefe
8) Mitchell Johnson
9) Stuart Broad
10) Amit Mishra
11) Praveen Kumar

Toss- Bowl first

Team News

Upul Tharanga and Vinay Kumar miss out this week, as new signing Praveen Kumar looks to make a debut to remember. Mohammad Kaif makes his first start of the season, O'Keefe returns to the team and unluckily due to the nature of the pitch Ross Taylor misses out.

Batting

Mukund and Marsh will open the batting with both looking to keep the scoreboard ticking over around 7 an over will be the target for the first 5 overs. Kaif will play the anchor role of the innings he will look to get ones and twos going at just over a run a ball. Pandey will look to be the aggressor as will AB. RCB will go into the final 5 with plenty of wickets in hand and there middle to lower order blasting them to a impressive total of 150.

Bowling

Broad and Johnson (unsurprisingly) will open the bowling for RCB looking for that inconsistent bounce and take a couple of wickets in the first few overs. There pace and bounce should lead RCB to a great start. Praveen will come on to look for that reverse swing that the pitch has to offer he will look to keep it tight and put the Kings XI batters under tons of pressure. Then it will be the turn for the spinners, Jadeja, O'Keefe and Mishra, rotating all them relatively. They will also look to put the pressure on Kings XI's batters while their bowling. The cracks in the pitch will be especially useful for all 3. Praveen bowls a few during the middle and Broad and Johnson finish the game off!

Johnson- 1, 3, 18, 20 (4 overs)
Broad- 2, 4, 17, 19 (4 overs)
Praveen- 5, 10, 12, (3 overs)
O'Keefe- 6, 8, 14 16 (4 overs)
Mishra- 7, 9, 11 (3 overs)
Jadeja- 13, 15 (2 overs)

erm sorry a bit late with the tactics but given not many have voted yet shouldn't be too important.

Team:
Kieswetter (wk)
Gambhir
KP (capt)
Ganguly
Umar Akmal
Karthik
RTD
Bresnan
Yadav
Sharma (R.)
Karthik

Selection - new signing Gambhir makes his debut and his experience and class are certainly welcome on a tough batting track. Chitnis is left out, as it is felt the experience of Karthik and Ganguly will be important here. Bowling wise, we're going with three spinners: the experienced Murali Karthik (SLA), exciting young talent Yadav (OS - check his record, it's impressive) and the superb young leggie Rahul Sharma. We thus have great variety in ths pin bowling department. They are backed up by new signing Tim Bresnan who will love this pitch with its uneven bounce and reverse swing.

Batting tactics. Gambhir will anchor through the start, while Kieswetter will look to pounce on any loose offerings of Johnson (who will most likely provide some) and Broad. Batting order is flexible, if we lose early wickets Ganguly will come in to rebuild, but if we get a good start Umar Akmal will be promoted ahead of him. RTD could also get promoted depending on the situation. There's good depth there, with seven proper batsmen and Bresnan at 8. We will look to attack Kumar who shouldn't get much reverse swing coming on so early, and while the spinners are good containment bowlers, none of them is a massive wicket taking threat. Sensible aggression should see us to a good score.

Bowling tactics:
Bresnan and Karthik to open up, Bresnan looking to take advantage of the inconsistent bounce while the canny Karthik will enjoy the prodigious turn on offer. After two overs, RTD will replace Bresnan, and look to bolw stump to stump to exploit the pitch. The middle overs will see mostly spin, with Bresnan returning at the death and looking for that reverse swing. The RCB batting looks fragile with Jadeja at 6.

Bowling order:
Bresnan - 1,3,18,20
Karthik - 2,4,6,16
RTD - 5,7,13 ,19
Yadav- 8,10,12,14
Sharma - 9,11, 15,17

KP and Ganguly as back-up options

forgot to mention:

Toss - bat first