Now that the fog has cleared up and all the qualifiers and eliminators are done with, we have the final two contenders for the trophy of the Indian Premier League. It’s the teams from the south of India, Bangalore and Hyderabad, who have conquered all to reach the pinnacle and now are just one step away from being crowned the champions.
And for a change there is no Chennai or Mumbai or Kolkata nearby this time. Both the teams are up for their maiden title.
RCB have played two finals before but lost on both the occasions while Sunrisers are playing their maiden final. (Previous team from Hyderabad – Deccan Chargers had won the trophy once but that unit was defunct and the new team from Hyderabad came up.)
Both these teams have had quite a contrary as well as similar journey this season. Contrary in the sense that Sunrisers have been consistent throughout with their performance and looked certain to reach the final stages whereas the Royal Challengers peaked only at the last stages of IPL before looking almost out of it. RCB won consecutive 4 matches to make it to the playoffs.
And now the similarity, both teams have been driven by their skippers who have scored heaps and heaps of runs. Virat Kohli for RCB and David Warner for SRH.
In fact both are the top 2 scorers this season. Both team’s batting has revolved around their skippers, who have been the main architects of almost all their team’s wins.
Bangalore have been batting heavy as always where the batsmen have consistently scored runs to take the match out of the reach of their opponents but the bowlers have majorly been unable to defend even big scores. On the other hand Sunrisers bowlers have been exceptional to reduce most teams to scores which have been chasable or defended low scores when required.
Sunrisers batting has been too dependent on Warner. There have been few scores by Yuvraj and Dhawan but it is the might of Warner that has won them matches.RCB on the other hand has had AB De Villiers scoring well with KL Rahul and Chris Gayle coming good on a couple of occasions.
The teams are matched up pretty well but the RCB hold an edge as the final is being played at the Chinaswamy Stadium at Bangalore, their home ground.
The ground is well known to the RCB and suits their game. The pitch is good for batting and the boundaries are small, so if Warner and Yuvraj have a good day, they too can push RCB out of the match. But for all that, we will have to wait till the evening.