Captain Kohli back to his best

The fourth full week of the Dream11 Indian Premier League kicks off with two teams full of confidence after wins on Saturday as the Royal Challengers Bangalore take on the Kolkata Knight Riders at Sharjah. It’ll be the bowlers that hold the key at a small ground where runs normally flow freely.

A captain's knock

Having Virat Kohli in form and in the runs is just as good, if not better than any number of overseas stars in your side and this is just what the Royal Challengers Bangalore have for themselves at the moment. After a slow start with the bat, Kohli has come back with a bang, and his knock of 90* helped his side get the two points against the Chennai Super Kings on Saturday night. His innings was made even more significant by the lack of runs from Aaron Finch (2), AB de Villiers (0) and a slow 33 from 34 balls for Devdutt Padikkal. RCB managed to set CSK 170 to win and felt that was above par on what was a fairly slow wicket in Dubai.

In response it was a new face and a usual suspect who did the majority of the damage. Chris Morris came in to the side in the place of Moeen Ali, and he proved yet again why he is a world class star with figures of 4-0-19-3. In addition, one of the shining lights with the ball this year for RCB, Washington Sundar continued to impress with 2-16 from his three overs to help his side secure a 37 run win.

Two runs to get two points

It was a tighter affair for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the early game on Saturday as they just got past bottom of the table Kings XI Punjab. They set Kings XI a par at best 165 runs to win after opener Shubman Gill (57) and captain Dinesh Karthik (58) scored the bulk of the runs. DK will be more than happy to get some quick runs, to get some critics off his back who think it is time for him to move on as the skipper of KKR.

Kings XI were ahead for 90% of their run chase and at 115-0, needing 50 runs to win from the last six overs with all of their wickets in hand, you would have been mad to think that KKR even had a chance of winning the match. Three wickets for Prasidh Krishna and two for Sunil Narine pegged back Kings XI and gave KKR a narrow two run win.

Match Tip

At such a small ground like Sharjah, the bowlers will be crucial in deciding who will win this match. Whilst I don’t think RCB will win the match outright, when Virat Kohli is in form he is a hard man to stop.

I am backing Virat Kohli to hit more than 29.5 runs in the match between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Kolkata Knight Riders at 1.83 with Betway.

Bet Virat Kohli to score more than 29.5 runs on Betway