After a forgettable first half of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021, two-time winners Kolkata Knight Riders will look to reverse its fortune when they resume their campaign against a buoyant Royal Challengers Bangalore in the second phase of the cash-rich league in Abu Dhabi, on Monday.

In the IPL 2021 points table, Virat Kohli‘s RCB is placed third with 10 points from seven games. And 2012 and 2014 champions KKR are languishing at the bottom of the table at the seventh spot with two wins out of seven ties.

And this time around, the Eoin Morgan-led KKR would be hoping to make a turnaround and repeat their 2014 performance. They won nine games in a row to claim the title.

KKR chief mentor David Hussey also exuded optimism about scripting a turnaround, despite a nightmarish first half.

“All we have to do is win this … We have done it before and so we can do it again… I feel we have the squad to do it also. You qualify for the finals and whole competition starts again,” the Australian said.

Even though KKR leads in head-to-head record against RCB, winning 18 and losing 13 out of 28 fixtures played between the two sides, the 38-run defeat against Kohli’s team in the first half of the event in Chennai would be fresh on their minds.

KKR’s two wins earlier this year came against two under-performing sides — Punjab Kings, who are placed just a rung above them, and bottom-placed Sunrisers Hyderabad.

For its batting, KKR will be relying heavily on the pair of Subhman Gill and Nitin Rana to deliver the goods.

While Gill scored just 132 runs, Rana managed 201 runs in the first seven games for KKR in this year’s IPL.

Apart from the top order, the middle order in the form of Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Rahul Tripathy and Shakib Al Hasan will have to fire if they want to make a dent in the tournament.

KKR’s bowling department will be on the shoulders of Kiwi Tim Southee, who came in as a replacement for Pat Cummins for the second half.

RCB, on the other hand, are currently placed in a comfortable position and would be hoping for Kohli to play freely and score big runs.

With Glenn Maxwell (223 runs from 7 games) and AB de Villiers (207 runs from 7) leading the run-scorers chart till now for the team, RCB’s batting unit looks ominous.

In the bowling department, Mohammed Siraj and Kyle Jamieson would lead the attack that already has Harshal Patel, Navdeep Saini and Yuzvendra Chahal.

The additions of the Sri Lanka duo of Wanindu Hasaranga and Dushmantha Chameera will be great additions to their squad.

Squads (from)

KKR: Eoin Morgan (capt), Dinesh Karthik, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Karun Nair, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathy, Shubman Gill, Harbhajan Singh, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Pawan Negi, M Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Dube, Tim Southee, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy, Andre Russel, Ben Cutting, Shakib Al Hasan, Sunil Narine, Venkatesh Iyer, Sheldon Jackson, Tim Seifert.

RCB: Virat Kohli (capt), Navdeep Saini, Glenn Maxwell, Dan Christian, Rajat Patidar, Dushmantha Chameera, Pavan Deshpande, Mohammed Siraj, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Azharuddeen, Sachin Baby, Wanindu Hasaranga, George Garton, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shahbaz Ahmed, Devdutt Padikkal, Kyle Jamieson, Suyash Prabhudessai, KS Bharat, Tim David, Akash Deep, AB de Villiers.

Match starts at 7:30PM IST.