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Bangalore: Dropped to the fifth position from third in the points table, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) would look to return to winning ways against an improving Kings XI Punjab on Wednesday to brighten up their play-off chances in the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore.
The loss against Kolkata Knight Riders by 47 runs in their last game notwithstanding, RCB would look to draw inspiration from the five-wicket win against Kings XI Punjab in the last encounter between the two sides at Mohali.
It has been a mixed outing for RCB so far in the tournament, winning four games and losing as many from nine outings with one match against Chennai Super Kings being washed out.
RCB's foreign recruits -- Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and to some extent Tillakartane Dilshan -- have played stellar roles in the victories, but the form of its domestic players has been a major worry for the Bangalore outfit.
Gayle and de Villiers have been at their devastating best with the bat, but find themselves waging a lonely battle time and again because of the lack of support from domestic players.
Virat Kohli, Saurabh Tiwary, Mayank Agarwal and Cheteshwar Pujara all have failed to contribute with the bat so far, thereby putting extra pressure on the foreign players, especially Gayle to do the bulk of the scoring.
Among pacers, Zaheer Khan has impressed in patches up but R Vinay Kumar and young Harshal Patel have been expensive.
On other hand, Kings XI is slowly and steadily finding their form after a slow start to the tournament.
And come Wednesday, the Punjab outfit would look to extend their winning run following the seven-run victory over defending champions Chennai Super Kings in their last game.
Kings XI has eight points from nine games with four wins and five loses and the visitors would look to increase their tally to keep alive their play-off chances.
But Punjab's misery is compounded by the absence of their skipper Gilchrist, who is out with a hamstring injury.
In the absence of Gilchrist, Kings XI would be banking heavily on stand-in-skipper David Hussey to deliver the goods. The younger among the Hussey brothers, has so far scored 210 runs from eights innings at an average of 30.
Besides Hussey, another Australian Shaun Marsh has also been amongst runs. He has so far notched up 258 runs in nine innings and has been instrumental in Kings XI's wins.
Young Mandeep Singh, who has 234 runs under his belt, would also like to carry on his good showing up the order.
On the bowling front, the inclusion of Parwinder Awana and Azhar Mahmood has added a sting to Kings XI's pace attack, which also has a wily customer in Praveen Kumar.
Teams from
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Daniel Vettori (captain), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers (wk), Saurabh Tiwary, Andrew McDonald, R Vinay Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Harshal Patel, K P Apanna, Charl Langeveldt, Dirk Nannes, Luke Pomersbach, Rilee Rossouw, Abhimanyu Mithun, Arbar Anjum Kazi, Arun Karthik, Asad Khan Pathan, C M Gautam, Cheteshwar Pujara, Karun Nair, Mohammad Kaif, Raju Bhatkal, Ronit More, Ryan Ninan, S Aravind, S Thiyagrajan, Syed Mohammad and Vijay Zol.
Kings XI Punjab: Adam Gilchrist (captain & wk), Love Ablish, Piyush Chawla, Amit Yadav, Azhar Mahmood, Bhargav Bhatt, Bipul Sharma, Stuart Broad, Siddharth Chitnis, Paras Dogra, James Faulkner, Harmeet Singh, Ryan Harris, Praveen Kumar, Vikramjeet Malik, Mandeep Singh, Shaun Marsh, Dimitri Mascarenhas, David Miller, Abhishek Nayar, Ramesh Powar, Nathan Rimmington, Nitin Saini (wk), Rajagopal Sathish, Shalabh Srivastava, Sunny Singh, Paul Valthaty, Parvinder Awana, David Hussey
Stats and trivia
Match facts
Wednesday May 2, 2012 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (14:30 GMT)
