IPL 2017 | RCB vs MI Match Preview: Can Kohli led Royal Challengers Bangalore fend off upbeat Mumbai Indians' challenge at Bengaluru

Royal Challengers Bangalore shall be taking on Mumbai Indians on Friday evening at the MA Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bengaluru. The match is scheduled to commence at 4:PM.

Royal Challengers Bangalore shall be boosted by the return of their batting maestro Virat Kohli who was declared fit by the medical team to play against Mumbai. Virat would be all geared to lead his side and begin his IPL campaign with a win.

Kohli shall add impetus to Bangalore's strong batting lineup which has the likes of Chris Gayle, AB De Villiers and Shane Watson. Bangalore would be happy with the form of Proteas batting genius AB de Villiers who smoked an explosive 89 off just 46 balls against Kings Eleven Punjab in a losing cause.

Form guide

Mumbai Indians has surely got into some winning momentum after losing to Rising Pune Supergiants in their opener. MI registered impressive wins over Kolkata Knight Riders by four wickets and went onto beat in-form Sunrisers Hyderabad by four wickets.

Royal Challengers Bangalore are languishing at sixth position in the table after They lost their opener to Sunrisers Hyderabad by 35 runs and were given a thumping by Kings XI Punjab by eight wicket.They edged past beat Delhi Daredevils by 15 runs.

Seasoned seamer Lasith Malinga's return has definitely added that edge to Mumbai's bowling attack. Mumbai would like their captain Rohit Sharma to get some runs under his belt as he looked below par int the first three games. Mumbai may bring in either Australian pacer Mitchel Johnson or Kiwi speedser Tim Southee for McClenaghan who has leaked a lot of runs in the first three games.

Head to Head

The two sides have met each other 19 times in the past with Mumbai Indians holding an edge by winning 11 of those encounters.interestingly Mumbai have won six of their seven games against RCB at Bangalore.

Overall Mumbai have an 11-8 winning record against Royal Challengers in the IPL. At the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, Mumbai have won six of seven games against RCB.

Kohli  said Royal Challengers are unlikely to bat first again at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. "We decided to strengthen our bowling and then back that part of our side, but now with me coming back that might change again," Kohli said. "Bangalore has generally been a ground where you can chase down high totals. Tomorrow, being a day game, really matters because the wicket plays much better under lights than during the day time."

The likely XIs

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Virat Kohli, 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Shane Watson, 5 Kedar Jadhav, 6 Mandeep Singh, 7 Stuart Binny, 8 Pawan Negi, 9 Tymal Mills, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Aniket Choudhary

Mumbai Indians: 1 Parthiv Patel, 2 Jos Buttler, 3 Rohit Sharma, 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Krunal Pandya, 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Jasprit Bumrah

So it is all set for another thrilling encounter between the two IPL heavyweights at the MA Chinaswamy stadium later in the evening.