Defending the lowest-ever total in the tournament's history has instilled confidence among Punjab Kings players, according the team's assistant coach Brad Haddin. The former Australia player believes the morale-boosting 16-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has instilled a renewed sense of belief within the squad.
With PBKS getting into the business iend of the tournament with a clash with Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the M. chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday, Haddin has called for sharper focus, better execution and bolder cricket from the Shreyas Iyer-led side.
I think the one thing it does with the playing group is it re-ensures everything that we're doing — they start to trust: The players started to believe that they could win from any situation. I reckon that is really important as you go deeper into the tournament.
Punjab Kings had defended the lowest-ever total in IPL history — just 111 runs — to bowl out KKR for a mere 95 in Mullanpur. Haddin said such a result reinforced the players’ belief in their process and ability to fight back from any position.
I think the one thing it does with the playing group is it re-ensures everything that we're doing — they start to trust. The players started to believe that they could win from any situation. I reckon that is really important as you go deeper into the tournament.
Punjab Kings are places fourth in fourth position in the points table with with eight points from four wins and two def ats in six matches. RCB, their opponents in Friday's match, are also with eight points but in third position with a better net run rate.
Punjab Kings will be hoping for another sterling performance from ace spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who came up with one of his best performances in the previous match against Kolkata Knight Riders. Skipper Shreyas Iyer has led their batting effort scoring 250 runs in six matches while pacer Arshdeep Singh is their best bowler so far with eight wickets.
Both teams would like to win Friday's match and climb to a higher position in the standings and maintain their chances of reaching the playoffs.
RCB get into Friday's match with a big, nine-wicket win over Rajasthan Royals and will be hoping to stitch together a few mor victories
They have had a good start in IPL 2025 with morale-boosting wins against old nemises Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians at the Chepauk Stadium and Wankhede respectively where they have not won in many years. They will be hoping to get back to winning ways after suffering two successive home defeats.
Seasoned pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar admitted that the Chinnaswamy pitch, earlier known for being a batter's paradise, has undergone a lot of changes and is unlike the one that RCB has dominated on in the past.
Our preparation is as usual, nothing different. What we do for any opposition on any ground, it is going to be the same. We know the Chinnaswamy is known for batting, but if you look at the wicket, it is not the same as what it used to be. I don’t know the reason, but yes, whether we bowl or bat first, we’ll look at the first few overs and then see how the wicket plays, and then we will decide how to approach things accordingly.
The seasoned bowler from Uttar Pradesh is leading the RCB attack with Australian quick Josh Hazlewood and said their role in the bowling attack changes as per the situation.
“The role cannot be defined before the match. Normally, if you look at our bowling, Hazlewood and I both bowl with the new ball, and both bowl at the death. So it's a pretty standard role we have, but it keeps changing from match to match. It depends on how we bowl in the first few overs, how the team is batting, and so on. But yes, being experienced bowlers, we both want to take wickets and want to do well for the team," he said.
Bhuvneshwar said Rajat Patidar has been very calm in his captaincy, which has helped him settle down in the role.
"He's been very good. The best thing is that he's been calm. That's what he needed, especially in this format. Because when you lose a match, the easy thing is to get panicked. And that's what he has done. We lost two matches, but he's been the same whether we won or we lost. So he's been handling everything very well. With the bowling changes and everything, he's been superb," said the pacer.
Hazlewood leads their bowling efforts with nine wickets in six matches whil spin-bowling all-rounder Krunal Pandya has claimed eight wickets so far. With things going well for them, Bhuvneshwar and RCB will be hoping to continue to build the momentum and get into the last stretch on a high.
None of the team's have any major advantage in head-to-head series with PBKS winning 17 and RCB 16 of their 33 clashes so far.
Probable playing XIs: Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (capt), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal,
Punjab Kings: Priyansh Arya, Prabhsiman Singh, Shreyas Iyer (capt), Josh Inglis (wk), Nehal Wadhera, Glenn Maxwell, Shashank Singh, Marco Jansen Yuzvendra Chahal, Xavier Bartlett, Arshdeep Singh.
