It’s once again been a disappointing season for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) after having suffered six losses on the trot. While all the losses are bound to hurt the team, the most recent one against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens could be the deadliest blow as the Fat du Plessis-led outfit lost by a solitary run.

And after such a morale-crushing loss, the last team the bottom-ranked RCB would want to run into is the marauding Sunrisers Hyderabad, comfortably placed on the third position in the IPL points tally.

The Sunrisers have already breached the 250-mark thrice this season, and the carnage at the M Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru will be still fresh in the minds of the RCB fans as they prepare for the reverse fixture at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, where the Sunrisers have been a dominant force in their two outings so far.

Against a pedestrian bowling unit like the RCB, it won’t be wrong to expect another carnage from the SRH batters on Thursday. The SRH batters have been pushing the boundaries of T20 batting with their aggressive approach, and in their previous match against Delhi Capitals, the SRH openers raced to 125 for no loss inside the powerplay that almost raised chances of the 300-run mark being breached for the first time ever in the IPL.

SRH’s left-handed opening combo of Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head have become a nightmare for the opposition teams, and the duo will leave no chances of punishing the out-of-form RCB bowlers. The middler order, comprising the likes of Heinrich Klaasen, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy have been in impressive form, and that has made the job of their bowlers and skipper Pat Cummins easier.

However, the one thing that RCB can breathe easy is the fact that the SRH bowling attack has also leaked plenty, and made a heavy weather of defending totals of 277, 287 and most recently 266. This should give the RCB batting led by Orange Cap holder Virat Kohli (379 runs) the license to target the SRH bowling.

The RCB unit will also take a lot of positives from their previous loss against KKR, as they fought incredibly hard with the bat to reach 221 after conceding 222/6. Moreover, a collective batting effort must have pleased the RCB management to a large extent.

More than anything, the RCB fans and team management would be hoping for the umpires to avoid making any more contentious calls that let them down in their last match when Kohli was adjudged out to a controversial ‘waist-high no-ball’.

Captain Faf du Plessis, Dinesh Karthik and the rest of the batting order must once again punch above their weight to make up for their severe shortcomings in bowling, that will once again be led by Mohammed Siraj, and comprises the likes of Alzarri Joseph and Yash Dayal, their best bowler so far with seven wickets.

Having said that, it would be foolish to take the RCB lightly as they have ruthlessly bounced back in earlier seasons of the IPL, and a similar situation cannot be ruled out on Thursday.