After getting a moral boost with a win over Delhi Daredevils on Saturday, Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore will look to win all of their remaining three games of the tournament to keep their hopes alive of making in to the play-offs.
The eleventh season of the Indian Premier league, which started on April 8 is now entering into its final week with the competition between the teams getting tighter. Sunsrisers Hyderabad have already booked their slot in the play-offs, while Delhi Daredevils have suffered elimination, which leaves six teams still in contention for the upcoming stages of the league.
However, the race to seal the top half berth is not going to be easy for Kohli's RCB, who have consistently disappointed with their string of poor performances at crucial moments of the game.
Royal Challengers Bangalore are currently placed in the seventh place on the league table with four wins from 11 games. Meanwhile, their opponents for Monday's encounter -- Kings XI Punjab - seem to have lost the grip as the tournament advances and are in the third place with six wins from 11 games.
A transformed Kings XI Punjab, who had added a pool of young Indian cricketers in their squad this season, had started with a bang -- winning five of their first six games -- but could only manage to fetch two wins from five matches.
They shall be coming into this crucial encounter at their new home ground in Indore on the back of two consecutive defeats from Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders.
In their last game at Indore on Saturday, KKR's Sunil Narine (75 of 36 balls) and Dinesh Karthik (50 of 23 deliveries) had smashed KXIP bowlers all over the park to post 245/6 in 20 overs.
The lackluster performance of the bowlers has now turned out to be a new headache for skipper Ravichandran Ashwin, who is already worried from the poor display by the side's middle order.
Opener Kl Rahul, who is coming into Monday's game after scoring 84*, 95* and 66 in the last three innings, has smashed a total of 537 runs from 11 games. But he has turned to be the lone performer for the side. No other batsman has come up to share the responsibility.
T20 veteran Chris Gayle had started on a solid note in the initial few games, but the 38-year old Jamaican hasn't maintained that form ever since.
The middle order, consisting of Karun Nair, Mayank Agarwal, Yuvraj Singh, Aaron Finch and Manoj Tiwary, has turned to be a massive flop.
On the bowling front, although Australian pacer Andrew Tye (20 wickets from 11 game) and Mujeeb Ur Rahman (14 wickets from 11 games) are consistently doing well, the other set of bowlers have failed to live up to the expectations.
Skipper Ashwin, Mohit Sharma, Barinder Sran, Ankit Rajpoot and the only player to be retained by KXIP -- Axar Patel -- have all struggled to create problems for opposing batsmen. They have failed to get breakthroughs because of which betsmen have found it easy to rotate strike between wickets.
like in previous seasons, Indian skipper Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore tale is no different. The side possesses some of the biggest names in the shortest format of the game but even then they are not able to live up to the hype.
Their batting revolves around Virat and de Villiers, who played a brilliant knock in the must win game against Daredevils on Saturday.
While Virat has managed to add 466 runs from 11 games to his tally, de Villiers has contributed 358 runs from nine innings. But the average performance from Quinton de Kock (201) and Brendon McCullum (127) has dismantled the team balance.
In the bowling section too, apart from Indian regulars Yuzvendra Chahal (10 wickets) and Umesh Yadav (14 wickets) the other bowlers' display has been a cause for concern.
Young Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar have disappointed with their individual performances, while Tim Southee and Chris Woakes have also failed to deliver.