Challengers favourites against injury ridden Royals

Royal Challengers Bangalore will look to capitalize on the absence of some star players in the Rajasthan Royals squad when the two sides meet on Thursday.

Royal Challengers started their home campaign with an impressive win over Kings XI Punjab on Tuesday. They managed to chase a down a target in excess of 200, thanks to their impressive Batting Momentum and will be hoping to repeat the same against a struggling Royals unit. Jacques Kallis has been excellent so far and Robin Uthappa showed exactly what he is capable off in the game against Punjab. With the likes of Rahul Dravid, Manish Pandey and Eoin Morgan in their ranks, they have a very strong batting line-up. The only area of concern has been their bowling, which has been punished in both the matches played so far and most of the damage has been done in the Quick start overs.

Rajasthan Royals on the other hand are struggling with form and the growing list of problems has only increased with injuries ruling out Graeme Smith and Dimitri Mascarenhas for the remainder of the tournament. That takes out two very capable big-hitting batsmen from their arsenal. Their dependency on Yusuf Pathan and the other local talent would increase considerably and players like Damien Martyn could get a game, much ahead of expectation. As the comparison above clearly indicates, they will be underdogs for this one as Bangalore dominates them in almost every department but with Shane Warne leading their side, a turn around in fortunes might not be far.