Kings XI Punjab will play their last home match of the season against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Monday (May 14). The men led by Ashwin, who picked up five victories in their first six matches, have suffered four losses in their last five games.

KXIP’s plummeted form has now put their playoff chances in jeopardy with Rajsathan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders also eyeing the two remaining berths in the elite club and Mumbai Indians breathing down their neck.

Royal Challengers Bangalore, on the other hand, are in much worse situation than KXIP. Even if they win all their remaining clashes from the penultimate spot of the table, they will still have to rely on the four teams placed over them in order to advance to the next round.

Unlike KXIP, RCB are in a must-win situation and a defeat tonight will throw them out of the fray. RCB are going into the match with a win from their last encounter, but that makes things more complicated for the Bangalore-based franchise as it hasn’t managed to register back-to-back wins since 2016.

Kings XI Punjab

Playing on the batting friendly pitch at Indore, that allowed a total of 459 runs in the last game here, KXIP’s middle-order batting line-up will have to come up with a stronger approach against RCB, who have the likes of Virat Kohli and AB de Villers at their disposal.

KL Rahul has been incredibly brilliant in providing a good start to his team with Chris Gayle as his opening partner, but Punjab’s middle-order haven’t been able to strike the right notes. David Miller might return to the team in place of Mujeeb Ur Rahman to strengthen the batting in the middle.

Predicted XI: KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Karun Nair, Aaron Finch, David Miller, Manoj Tiwary, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohit Sharma, AJ Tye, Ankit Rajpoot

Royal Challengers Bangalore

RCB are unlikely to make any change in the playing eleven from their last game. They had a very good game last time and will look to repeat the same performance tonight when they take on the hosts.