What Match 33 of Pepsi IPL 2015 will see the Royal Challengers Bangalore lock horns with defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders. RCB have seven points on the board – six points from their three wins and one point from the washed out fixture against Rajasthan Royals most recently. The pieces have started to fall in place for Virat Kohli’s team; they lost three matches on the bounce, before registering convincing wins in back-to-back matches against the Rajasthan Royals and the Delhi Daredevils. In their most-recent outing, the middle order chose just the right day to come good; RCB finished their innings with a commanding 200 runs on the board despite the openers contributing only a total of 11 runs. Even though the weather gods denied them the chance to bag two full points, RCB will be feeling upbeat that they’re starting to click together as a unit. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Kolkata Knight Riders, the Pepsi IPL 2014 champions; they are currently third in the standings with four wins from eight outings. They will be pumped up heading into this match, after their convincing seven-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings in the previous match. When 02 May 2015, 4p.m. IST Where M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru The Protagonists On the batting front, RCB will expect a big score from one of their top three – Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli or AB de Villiers. KKR have always employed the strategy of one of their openers batting through the innings and will look towards doing the yet again. Robin Uthappa reiterated that point after his match-winning knock in previous match against CSK; he said his role in the team was “to hold one end up for the team, be the pillar for the side and make sure he remains there till the end when the job is done”. Contests to look-forward to In Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers are three of the most formidable batsmen in world cricket. In Brad Hogg, the RCB top three will find someone who will ask plenty of questions – even if it is only for four overs. The 44-year old chinaman bowler has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, has shown the hunger for a contest and in his two outings so far has generally stayed one step ahead of the batsman. Previous Meetings The head to head between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders stands at 7 wins for the former and 8 wins for the latter. It was against KKR that RCB opened their Pepsi IPL 2015 campaign. In the match at the Eden Gardens, Chris Gayle’s 56-ball 96 helped the visitors chase down 178. Trivia All four of the Kolkata Knight Riders wins in Pepsi IPL 2015 have been in run-chases. The two batsmen who have scored the most runs in successful run-chases in the IPL are Gautam Gambhir (1398 runs in 41 innings) and Chris Gayle (1073 runs in 20 innings). Prior to Mitchell Starc joining up with the Royal Challengers Bangalore side in Pepsi IPL 2015, RCB had picked up 15 wickets – only two of which were Bowled or LBW - in three matches. Since Starc’s arrival, RCB have picked up 27 wickets in the next three matches – 6 of which were Bowled and 3 others were LBW. What Next KKR and RCB will take the park next on May 4. KKR’s next fixture is the away clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad, while RCB head to Chennai for their away fixture against the Chennai Super Kings.