Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Punjab Kings Prediction - IPL 2022 Match 60: Who Will Win?

Royal Challengers Bangalore Team Preview

The Royal Challengers Bangalore must be feeling not entirely settled in their fourth place position. Although the seven wins from 12 matches gives them a good footing on 14 points, anything could happen in the remaining handful of matches. They are neck-and-neck with the Rajasthan Royals, however, come off worse with a negative run rate of -0.115. With just four spots available for the Play-Offs, if it comes down to it, the net run rate will be used to distinguish who will advance and who will not make the cut. Therefore the Challengers must keep this in mind during their final two games, to give them the best chance possible of reaching the Play-Offs.

They come into this match on the back of two fantastic wins. They delivered an astounding defeat of 67 runs to the Sunrisers Hyderabad, finishing on a total of 192/3. The Challengers definitely got off on the wrong foot, but quickly turned it around with some excellent performances from the batsmen. Virat Kohli was up first, only to finish much quicker than anticipated. Jagadeesha Suchith delivered Kolhi his third golden duck of the season. Dismissing such a key player would have given the Sunrisers some early confidence, however, skipper Faf du Plessis was set to turn this around. Du Plessis soared to a half century with ease and ended with a score of 73 runs from 50 balls (not out). Rajat Patidar also was showcasing a strong performance and finished with 48 runs from 38 balls before his dismissal at 105/2. Glenn Maxwell added a further 33 runs to the Challengers’ total from 24 balls, before being caught out by Aiden Markram. Finally, Dinesh Karthik took the Challengers to the victory line with ultimate style, scoring 30 runs from just 8 balls (not out). With four 6’s and one 4, he ended his batting spell with a strike rate of 375.00.

On the bowling side, the Challengers used seven bowlers, with only Josh Hazlewood and Wanindu Hasaranga bowling for the maximum for overs. Hasaranga had an unforgettable night, managing to get an astounding five wicket hall and a maiden. He conceded just 18 runs which was enough to put him in second place for the best bowling figure of the tournament so far. It comes as no surprise that he was awarded Player of the Match. However, there was a player even more economical than Hasaranga. Hazlewood’s bowling figure of 2/17 left him with an economy of 4.25, just a shade under Hasaranga’s 4.50. Maxwell and Harshal Patel can also take a slice of wicket glory, picking up one apiece. Maxwell finished with 1/13, while for Patel it was 1/20. Shahbaz Ahmed was the most expensive player of the bowling unit, finishing 0/20 in his two overs spell.

If you are hoping to make the best match prediction today while online cricket betting, it can be useful to look at some statistics to back up your choices. Du Plessis is current number three in the tournament for most runs. To date he’s scored 389. Karthik also is in third place for his batting average (68.50), however, his batting average is best in the squad by far, just under double that of Du Plessis (35.36). Karthik also has the best strike rate of the team at 200.0.

Regarding the bowlers, Hazlewood’s 12 wicket hall is enough to award him fifth place in the tournament, while also being the fifth most economical bowler at 6.81. David Willey improves on this slightly, and with a figure of 6.54, puts him in the third spot.

Punjab Kings Team Preview

The wins for the Punjab Kings are slightly outweighed by the losses, 5 to 6, in fact. Despite still managing to cling to the bottom of the ’10 point group’, their negative net run rate of -0.231 shows a clearer picture. They will be desperate for a win here, and the two points would nestle them nicely in the middle of the table. However, they have a checkerboard history of winning and in the last five games have flip flopped from loss to win and back to loss again. Without any sort of consistency, they will have to make some changed to pull off a winning game plan.

The Rajasthan Royals handed the Kings their latest defeat by 6 wickets with 2 balls left. While reaching a decent target just shy of 190, and putting on a decent batting performance, the Kings would have rightly felt confident. However, the bowling unit were having an off day and were not able to restrict the Royals as much as they would have liked. Arshdeep Singh took two wickets and conceded 29 runs. While Kagiso Rabada and Rishi Dhawan also managed to grab a wicket each. Rabada haemorrhaged 50 runs and was ultimately the most expensive player in the unit. Dhawan conceded 25 runs for an economy of 8.33. Sandeep Sharma finished 0/41 (10.25) and Rahul Chahar finished 0/39 (10.64).

On the batting site, Jonny Bairstow got the Kings off to a great start reaching 56 off 40 balls. The top order continued with Dhawan reaching 12 off 16, and Bhanuka Rajapaksa finishing with 27 runs from 18 balls. The middle order moved with a good amount of momentum, apart from captain Mayank Agarwal who almost went run-for-run scoring 15 runs from 13 balls. Jitesh Sharma scored 38 runs off 18 balls (not out), while Liam Livingstone scored 22 from 14 balls. All in all, this could have been a winning performance on any other day, however, the Rajasthan Royals did well to chase down the total.

Whether you are new to IPL betting, or have some experience to your name, the top batsman and top bowler market at the leading IPL betting sites are enjoyed by all. It can be difficult to make a choice, so we will share some statistics of the top Punjab Kings players to help.

Dhawan has scored 381 runs in the tournament so far, which is enough to put him in fourth place behind Jos Buttler (618), KL Rahul (415), and Faf du Plessis (389). Dhawan also has the best batting average of the Kings squad at 42.33. Liam Livingstone has the best strike rate of the team at 184.31. Regarding the bowlers, Singh has a bowling economy of 7.78, while Rabada is slightly higher at 8.72.

Toss Prediction

No captain to have won the toss for an evening game has chosen to bat first. This is because the threat of dew settling on the pitch is much more likely as the game progresses into the evening, and a wet cricket ball can affect the grip of a bowler. Therefore for our toss prediction, we believe the captain to win will most likely invite their opponents to bat first and take the slight disadvantage that the dew could bring.

Pitch Conditions

Brabourne Stadium’s red soil pitch in Mumbai offers a good amount of bounce, however the wear and tear is becoming evident as the tournament progresses. The pitch is naturally slowing down, however, the pitch should still be true.

The Royal Challengers Bangalore have played at this stadium twice in the tournament so far, with a high score of 170 and an unusually low score of 68. This pulls down their average score on this wicket to 119, however, we could expect a score closer to 200 than 100. For the Punjab Kings, their three matches on this wicket resulted in 189, 180, and 115 for an average of 164. Taking the highest scores for both teams at this stadium, the Challengers scored an average of 8.5 runs per 6 balls while the Kings scored 9.45.

The average first innings score for the IPL 2022 season at Brabourne Stadium is 176.8, with the average first innings winning score at 199.2. 46% of matches have been won with teams batting first, so, it goes to show the disadvantage of batting first is minimal.

The weather forecast remains largely the same, with a warm evening on the cards for the players. The temperature is predicted to be 30C with the ‘real-feel’ over 10 degrees hotter at 42C. It will feel very humid, with a forecast of 72%, which could increase the amount of dew forming on the pitch as the match progresses.