New Delhi: Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is facing Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Monday in the Eliminator match of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 Phase 2 at Sharjah Cricket Stadium. The team which loses today's match will be knocked out of the tournament. At the same time, if the RCB loses, then this will be Kohli's last match as team's captain. He has already announced that he will step down from RCB captaincy after this season and will play as a player.
During the toss against Kolkata, Kohli said that former South African batsman AB de Villiers would continue to play for Bangalore, next year as well.
Virat Kohli confirmed during the toss, “Me and de Villiers will continue to play for RCB in the coming years as well. Certainly, both of us will play together for RCB in the IPL in the coming years."
The team that wins today's eliminator will take on Delhi Capitals in Qualifier 2.
If we talk about the head to head record between the two teams, Kolkata has a 16-13 win record against Bangalore. Kohli took over the captaincy of Bangalore in the 2013 IPL season. Before him, Daniel Vettori was playing the captain's role. Meanwhile, Bangalore has reached the playoffs four times and in the year 2016, it had reached the final.
RCB playing XI: Virat Kohli (c), Devdutt Padikkal, Srikar Bharat (wk), Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Daniel Christian, Shahbaz Ahmed, George Garton, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
KKR playing XI: Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Shakib Al Hasan, Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakaravarthy