IPL 2022 PBKS vs RCB Preview - Who will draw first blood in battle of pre-tournament favourites?

Key match stats PBKS vs RCB

Pitch Stats – DY Patil Stadium

Average first innings score: 146
Average first innings winning score: 164
Average powerplay score: 42
All-time win % batting 1st vs batting 2nd: 41% / 59%

Team form DC vs MI
PBKS – n/a
RCB – n/a
Recent meetings: IPL 2021, RCB won by 6 runs, PBKS won by 34 runs

PBKS vs RCB preview

I was chatting to an Indian colleague of mine yesterday about who we thought were the pre-season favourites to win IPL 2022 and both these team names came up.

Punjab Kings look to have one of the strongest squads in the tournament, well balanced with their bowling options and plenty of power with the bat. The only thing that counts against them is the fact that it's Punjab! This franchise has a wretched record in the IPL with just a single play-off appearance in their history and many previous false dawns along the way.

Will this time be any different? Is was evident that PBKS needed a clear out at the end of last season and so no major surprise when they opted to retain just 2 players pre-auction. That kind of tactic is all very good but you do then have to buy well in the auction that follows and for me it looks will PBKS have done so. The proof of course is very much in the pudding and some early momentum is likely to be a key factor and how well this new group gels and potentially goes on.

Their opponents RCB were the early pace setters in last season's tournament before slipping away to yet another season without silverware. There has never been any shortage of star quality in the Bangalore squad but finding that winning formula has so far alluded them.

Kohli of course has handed over the captaincy to new comer Faf du Plessis and much of run scoring will be dependant on those 2 plus Glenn Maxwell who returned to form in the IPL in 2021 after a few barren years.

For me though, it's the strength of RCB's bowling unit that marks them out as one of the pre-tournament favourites. They appear to have all bases covered in that department and their approach to player recruitment at the start of the year is very different from what we've seen in previous IPLs where they've always favoured trying to squeeze in one extra overseas batting star at the expense of a bowler.

The flip side is that there are some question marks over their middle order and a lot could ride on veteran Dinesh Kartik supporting some of the younger players they have in their line-up to get them through to winning totals.

A quick word on the pitch and as with all my previews to date it's difficult to draw too many conclusions on these venues until we've seen what the curators have come up with. However, the historical data on this wicket shows it to be by far the least batsmen friendly of the 4 that will be used in round robin stage. RCB got off to a good start last year on the back of some slow, low turners in Chennai so they'd perhaps not be disappointed if they turn-up on Sunday and find something similar at the DY Patil Stadium.

PBKS vs RCB head to head stats

RCB bowling vs PBKS batting

A big blow for RCB coming into the game is the unavailability of Josh Hazlewood who is still with the Aussie team in Pakistan. Exactly how long he remains there seems dependant on his involvement in the limited overs series but Bangalore will be keen to get one of their big money buys available as soon as possible.

Of course, this wasn't unexpected and RCB did move to secure back up in the form of Jason Behrendorff and David Willey who alongside Mohammed Siraj will form a strong looking opening attack.

One thing that teams almost certainly won't do with any regularity vs PBKS is open with spin given the records of both Agarwal and Dhawan against slower bowling in the first 6 overs. That being said, RCB's Sri Lankan star Hasaranga has managed to limit Dhawan in previous meetings as shown above.

PBKS too will be without a couple of players due to international commitments and that includes England's Jonny Bairstow. However, they do have his international teammate Liam Livingstone who has gone from a 20 Lakh reserve with Rajasthan Royals to an 11.5 Crore star in the space of 12 months.

Livnigstone's T20 record vs spin bowling

Perhaps the biggest challenge for Livingstone will be living up to the expectation that comes with such a sum but also of concern particularly as he seems set to play in the middle order will be his numbers vs spin across his T20 career which are significantly lower than those against pace (average 33.2 S/R 147.7)

PBKS bowling vs RCB batting

We can't talk about head to head match-ups in cricket without mentioning the curious case of Virat Kohli vs Sandeep Sharma. Whether Sharma actually plays in this game will depend largely on the pitch conditions and balance of the side but if he does then expect all commentators and stat men to be pointing out the fact that Sharma has dismissed Kohli 7 times in the IPL with the champion batsman averaging just 10 against the 80mph seam up bowler.

However, while it's easy to highlight that particular match-up, there are a few other PBKS bowlers who will be licking their lips at the chance to continue their impressive head to head records against this RCB line-up. Take Kagiso Rabada for example who has a fantastic record against all the batsmen in the current RCB squad as shown below.

In that regard, Harpreet Brar has fond memories about playing RCB from last season when he tore through their top order.

One man who was completely flummoxed by Brar's left-arm spin last year was Glen Maxwell but the Australian won't be available for this match and that could be a problem for RCB who as noted above are already short of options in the middle order. It could be that the exciting albeit untested Finn Allen comes in and opens with Kohli moving down to 3.

All stats used in this blog are from my own database. Images are my own with the exception of player profiles and background images from the below sources and used under a creative commons license or otherwise royalty free

https://www.iplt20.com/
https://pixabay.com/images/search/cricket%20stadium/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en