Royal Challengers Bangalore will play the Kings XI Punjab on Friday in the only match of the day at Kingsmead in Durban.
 
The Bangalore side which is currently 25/2 at BetFair ‘favourite’ to win the tournament, have lost two successive matches after having beaten the Rajasthan Royals in the first game and will be almost desperate to notch up their second win (1/1 at Tote Sport to beat Punjab). However, even without possessing what was termed as a ‘test’ team this time around, Bangalore has run into some problems again.
 
Luckily for them, their opponents are Kings XI Punjab; another team which has surprised the fans and media with their results, or the lack of them anyways. With two games under their belt, they have yet to win a game, and if their bowling is anything to go by, it doesn’t look like they are planning to get onto the scoreboard soon. Punjab’s chances of winning the match have greatly reduced (1/1 at Paddy Power) with Yusuf Abdullah’s lack of consistency and Irfan Pathan’s (4/1 at Stan James for most economic bowler) form which has been spiralling downwards ever since the ICC Cricket World T20 in 2007.
 
The other issue that the Kings XI Punjab has faced in this tournament so far – apart from the rains that is – is the batting of Yuvraj Singh. Yuvraj has looked decent without being a match-winner that one has known him to be. Knowing well that his team needs a boost from one or the other side, Yuvraj Singh (4/1 at Stan James) will need to up his batting ante and get his skating shoes on.
 
The other problem that Yuvraj faces is quite opposite to what most teams are challenged with. With the likes of Brett Lee and Jerome Taylor injured and Shaun Marsh away on national duty, Yuvraj has few foreign resources to choose from. One does get a sense that Luke Pomersbach may not be too away from playing his first game at the IPL, probably at the expense of either Kumar Sangakkara or Yusuf Abdullah.
 
Bangalore has issues of its own. The batting has failed to really click on all three occasions, but to be fair, on two of them, they have been chasing targets which are as difficult as they can get under the circumstances. Kevin Pietersen (4/1 at Ladbrokes to be the best RCB scorer) had a reasonable first game, but seems to have faded away and will need to get his act together if Bangalore does not want to repeat their previous season’s performance.

Similarly, Stan James has offered 9/2 for Robin Uthappa to be the best Royal Challenger batsman, but his batting seems anywhere close to being called good. Jesse Ryder (4/1 at Ladbrokes to be best RCB batsman) is the one who has played in a couple of games and not troubled the scorers at all, and I will still not want to give up on him. The simple reason is that he hasn’t had a proper look-in, and one knows that in a format like this, players like him once set can go on to make a mockery of the opposition.

Tips for the day:

Team: Bangalore Royal Challengers (1/1 at Tote Sport)

Top Batsman: Kevin Pietersen (4/1 Ladbrokes)