By building a team of allrounders, Lucknow Super Giants have been able to find a way out of a lot of tough spots, but the one thing they haven’t been able to shake is an extreme reliance on their top order. KL Rahul (537 runs at 48.8), Quinton de Kock (502 runs at 38.6), and Deepak Hooda (406 runs at 31.2) have carried a line-up where the others have collectively contributed only 789 runs at 17.2.

A weakness that glaring would have pulled a lot of teams out of playoff contention, but Super Giants are here because their bowling has been exceptional. They took 96 wickets in the league stage at an average of 23.8 and strike rate of 17.1. They’re No. 1 in each of those metrics.

Krunal Pandya missed Super Giants’ last league game with a niggle. He’s had almost a week’s worth of recovery time. If it isn’t a serious injury, he should be back in the playing XI.

Harshal Patel split the webbing on his bowling hand and his stitches came off on Tuesday. He should be fit for the game, he said on the team’s YouTube channel. In case he doesn’t make it, Akash Deep could take his place.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Faf du Plessis (capt), 2 Virat Kohli, 3 Rajat Patidar, 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 Mahipal Lomror, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Shahbaz Ahmed, 8 Wanindu Hasaranga, 9 Harshal Patel/Akash Deep, 10 Josh Hazlewood, 11 Mohammed Siraj

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 KL Rahul (capt), 3 Deepak Hooda, 4 Krunal Pandya, 5 Ayush Badoni, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Jason Holder, 8 Avesh Khan, 9 Dushmantha Chameera, 10 Mohsin Khan, 11 Ravi Bishnoi