Head to head
Last season: Royal Challengers won both matches, by a whopping 82 runs (D/L method) in a rain-shortened game in Bengaluru, and by one run in a nailbiter in Mohali.
Overall: The teams have met in 18 matches, of which Kings XI have won ten and lost eight.
Most times, the use of the word “history” while talking about Twenty20 can be dismissed as hyperbole. On Monday, though, the Holkar Stadium could see a genuinely historic moment – if he scores 25, Chris Gayle will become the first batsman to reach 10,000 runs in T20s.
Will he play, though? Royal Challengers were without both Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers in their first two matches, and while it might take a while longer for Kohli to return from his shoulder injury, de Villiers indicated he is “very close to 100%”. If de Villiers does return, Royal Challengers might have to debate leaving out Gayle.
Kings XI don’t have too many selection headaches after positive displays from most of their players in a six-wicket win against Rising Pune Supergiant. They might, however, ponder the inclusion of new recruit Eoin Morgan, who is perhaps a more natural T20 fit than Hashim Amla, though that swap will necessitate a shuffle in the opening positions.
The likely XIs
Kings XI Punjab: 1 Hashim Amla/Eoin Morgan, 2 Manan Vohra, 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Swapnil Singh, 9 Mohit Sharma, 10 Sandeep Sharma, 11 T Natarajan.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Shane Watson (capt), 3 AB de Villiers/Travis Head/Billy Stanlake, 4 Mandeep Singh, 5 Kedar Jadhav, 6 Stuart Binny, 7 Vishnu Vinod (wk), 8 Pawan Negi/S Aravind, 9 Iqbal Abdulla, 10 Tymal Mills, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
