Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) will host Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Indian Premier League 2018 (IPL 2018) match number three at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. This will be the second of the double-headers on Sunday, April 09. While Virat Kohli continues to lead RCB, Dinesh Karthik will captain the KKR team for the first time. Both the teams look strong on paper, but RCB comes into the match as favourites. However, given the nature of the format, one cannot rule out an impressive performance by KKR.

This will be the 21st encounter between KKR and RCB. Knight Riders have won 11 matches while RCB emerged victorious in nine games.

Strengths of KKR & RCB

Interestingly, batting happens to be the strength of both the sides. RCB appear slightly heavy when it comes to batting as they have the likes of Kohli, Quinton de Kock, AB de Villers and Brendon McCullum in their ranks. KKR, on the other hand, have the services of Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa, Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell and Nitish Rana.

Weaknesses of KKR & RCB

Bowling could be a cause of concern for the both KKR and RCB. Ahead of IPL 2018, Knight Riders lost Mitchell Starc to an injury and that has left a huge void in their squad. KKR did pick Tom Curran as his replacement, but Starc’s absence could hurt the former champions. There are questions over Sunil Narine’s action as well and in case he his not allowed to bowl, then KKR will be in big trouble.

RCB appears to be a balanced side of the two. Ahead of the contest, RCB’s only weakness happens to be the venue. At Eden Gardens, RCB have lost five out of eight matches against KKR.

Teams:

Kolkata Knight Riders (From): Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa(w), Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik(c), Andre Russell, Shubman Gill, Mitchell Johnson, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Rinku Singh, Shivam Mavi, Cameron Delport, Javon Searles, Tom Curran, Ishank Jaggi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (From): Quinton de Kock(w), Manan Vohra, Virat Kohli(c), AB de Villiers, Mandeep Singh, Colin de Grandhomme, Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Sarfaraz Khan, Brendon McCullum, Parthiv Patel, Moeen Ali, Kulwant Khejroliya, Aniket Choudhary, Navdeep Saini, Murugan Ashwin, Pawan Negi, Corey Anderson, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, Tim Southee.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 08, 2018 09:07 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).