IPL 2023 RCB vs DC Preview - Royal Challengers looking to reignite campaign against basement team

Key match stats

Pitch Stats – M Chinnaswamy Stadium

Average first innings score:
Average first innings winning score:
Average powerplay score:
Win % batting 1st vs batting 2nd:% /%

Team form RCB vs DC

RCB: LLW
DC: LLLL

Recent meetings: IPL 2022 RCB won by 16 runs

Preview RCB vs DC

To quote an often used phrase "it's a game of small margins". Certainly that's how some Bangalore fans will feel coming off the back of their dramatic last ball defeat against LSG. If only Harshal Patel had managed to knock the bails off, if only Dinesh Karthik had collected the ball cleanly, etc, etc.

However, the reality of the matter is that RCB once again threw away a position of genuine dominance for the 3rd time in as many matches.

They started well with the bat and while we know they lack the explosive power of some of the other sides in the powerplay, they are still recording an average score of 53 while the field restrictions are in place. Perhaps more importantly to their game plan they are losing fewer wickets in the powerplay than any other franchise so far in IPL 2023 which should give them license to attack in the middle overs but unfortunately that didn't transpire against Lucknow.

Fingers will and indeed have been pointed at Kohli and du Plessis for not pushing on during the middle overs but statistically, they had put their side in an incredibly strong position. When you then have the opposition 23 for 3 at the end of the 4th over the game should be done and dusted.

Again, RCB's powerplay bowling is the best in the tournament so far. They have taken more wickets from fewer games than several of their rivals and have they best economy rate as well.

Team	Matches played	Powerplay wickets taken	Powerplay economy
RCB	3	8	6.3
PBKS	4	8	8.0
GT	4	8	8.3
RR	4	6	7.3
SRH	3	6	9.5
KKR	3	4	8.9
DC	4	4	9.2
CSK	4	4	11.0
LSG	4	3	9.4
MI	3	2	9.6

Powerplay bowling stats in IPL - accurate as of games completed on 13 April

The real weakness in this RCB side then is in their middle over and death over bowling. I've already alluded to the issue of bowling Siraj for 2 overs at the back end of an innings but he and his fellow death bowlers aren't being given a great platform to limit scoring from when you consider that RCB are conceding at over 11 an over during that middle overs! By contrast, RCB's batsmen are scoring at just over 8 runs an over in the same phase of the game. Even with a solid start and explosive finish that's a difficult swing to correct when we're taking about an 11 over period of the innings.

Of course, RCB's opponents in this match, Delhi Capitals, are failing in almost every aspect of the game. We can see from the table above that their much vaunted pace attack is struggling to make break throughs early on, while it's their powerplay batting that has really fallen off a cliff compared to their performance last year. Only KKR and SRH are scoring at a slower rate in that phase and only the former is losing more wickets than the Capitals.

I've already covered DC's middle over batting weaknesses against spin and that continued to be the issue during their latest defeat against Mumbai. We saw last season and we continue to see it again this year, that Rovman Powell can't pick leg-spin! He is very effective at hitting pace at the death so either use him in that role or drop him in favour of someone else who can bat during the middle phase.

The upshot of DC's batting problems is that they've recorded below average scores of 143, 162, 142 and 172 in their 4 games to date and the later score (the only one that can be considered par) was thanks mainly to a magnificent knock from Axar Patel.

At a venue where teams are failing to defend scores of 212, DC's batting is going to have to improve dramatically if they are to stand any chance of avoiding 5 defeats in a row!

RCB vs DC head to head

DC bowling vs RCB batting

The real key for DC in this match has to be to take wickets in the powerplay and put this RCB middle order under pressure. As much as anything, most of the guys sat in the Bangalore dugout haven't had the opportunity for any time in the middle with Kohli and du Plessis having faced over 61% of RCB's deliveries so far this season between them.

Khaleel Ahmed bowling figures in previous IPL match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium

Khaleel Ahmed has taken some tap in recent matches but he represents a good option to extract swing in the opening overs here at the M Chinnaswamy and he did just that on his last appearance here when took 3 for 37 including the wicket of Kohli in his first over.

Nortje all powerplay dismissals in T20 cricket vs Kohli and du Plessis

At the other end, DC must unleash Anrich Nortje. The South African quick has dismissed both Virat and Faf twice each in T20s in the last 18 months, with all of those dismissals coming in the opening 7 overs of the match.

With RCB's aforementioned problems in the middle overs, the battle between the Capital's spinners and the Royal Challengers batsmen will also be crucial. Krunal Pandya limited RCB's right-hand dominant line-up in a high scoring match and you'd imagine that Axar Patel will look to do exactly the same. For a bowler who doesn't take a huge number of wickets, he has enjoyed success at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium before.

Axar Patel IPL bowling stats at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium

Unlike Kohli and du Plessis, Maxwell will attack the spinners in the middle overs if given the opportunity. Kuldeep Yadav has claimed just 2 wickets in the tournament so far and will be under pressure if he bowls against Maxwell.

Kuldeep vs Maxwell T20 head to head

While Kuldeep has dismissed Maxwell on 3 occasions in T20s it should be noted that 2 of those dismissals came the first 2 times the players met in 2017 and 2018. We've seen lots of batsmen struggle with Kuldeep when they first face him and get increasingly confident thereafter. Kuldeep did dismiss Maxwell in the corresponding fixture between these 2 sides last year but not before Maxwell had taken 23 runs off the first 6 balls he'd faced from the chinaman bowler!

RCB bowling vs DC batting

Given what we've seen at the M Chinnaswamy so far and the fact that this is generally a batsmen friendly venue with pace in the pitch and short boundaries as well, it could prove just the kind of situation for a few of these Delhi batsmen to rediscover some form. It's probably no great surprise that many of them have good IPL records at the M Chinnaswamy stadium and of course the likes of Sarfraz Khan and Mansih Pandey have played for RCB here in the past.

Batsman	Average at the M Chinnaswamy	Strike Rate at the M Chinnaswamy
SN Khan	41.7	223.2
AR Patel	33.0	183.3
DA Warner	41.3	163.4
MK Pandey	39.1	128.0

Capitals batsmen with good IPL career records in Bangalore

The trouble however may come with the fact that RCB have reduced both teams that they've played at home so far to 20 odd for 3 in the powerplay and while both MI and LSG had sufficient strength in the middle order to either recover or in the case of Lucknow win the game, Delhi haven't shown much evidence that they'd be able to do the same under similar circumstances.

Siraj vs Prithvi T20 head to head

Equally, RCB appear to have the perfect match-ups for both of Delhi's openers with Mohammed Siraj dominating previous meetings with Prithvi Shaw and David Willey dismissing David Warner with ease in T20 cricket. Willey's record against Warner is particularly impressive because all 3 of his dismissals against the Aussie have come in the first over of the innings!

Willey vs Warner all T20 dismissals

If DC can get through that tricky powerplay then they do have the kind of batsmen who can take advantage of the fast scoring here at the death not to mention that both Rovman Powell and Rilee Rossouw have excellent records against the likes of Harshal Patel which could come into play if they get the platform to exploit it...

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All stats used in this blog are from my own databases which are freely accessible below
IPL head to head player stats
IPL player stats by venue
IPL stadium statistics.
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