The 37th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will see Punjab Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru clash in a return fixture at Mullanpur in New Chandigarh. The two teams faced each other on Friday (April 18) at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, where PBKS comfortably won a 14-over-per-side match.
The IPL has entered its second half, and the race to make it to the playoffs will now get intense. Punjab Kings are sitting pretty at the moment with five wins from seven matches and are in third place. On the other hand, RCB have lost their way a bit after a bright start, losing two of their last three matches. They are in fifth place after seven matches with four wins so far.
PBKS, led by Shreyas Iyer, will be confident of winning against RCB, having defeated them only 48 hours ago. However, RCB's all four wins have come away from home this season and the Rajat Patidar-led side will be banking on it.
Mullanpur Pitch Report
The venue has hosted three matches so far this season and all of them have been won by team batting first. In fact, PBKS defended 111 runs against KKR in the previous fixture at the venue. The first two matches here witnessed 200+ totals batting first. The average score in IPL 2025 is 178 but if the pitch is good, 200 is likely to be the par score. The team winning the toss is expected to bat first.
Mullanpur - IPL Numbers Game
Matches Played - 3
Matches won batting first - 3
Matches won bowling first - 0
Average 1st inns score - 178
Highest score - 219 by PBKS vs CSK
Squads
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Squad: Philip Salt, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar(c), Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma(w), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma, Yash Dayal, Devdutt Padikkal, Rasikh Dar Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh, Lungi Ngidi, Romario Shepherd, Nuwan Thushara, Mohit Rathee, Swastik Chikara, Abhinandan Singh
Punjab Kings Squad: Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Josh Inglis(w), Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Harpreet Brar, Xavier Bartlett, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Glenn Maxwell, Suryansh Shedge, Praveen Dubey, Yash Thakur, Vishnu Vinod, Aaron Hardie, Azmatullah Omarzai, Kuldeep Sen, Harnoor Singh, Musheer Khan, Pyla Avinash