The defending champions are all set to take on the best and the most successful bowling lineup of the season in Qualifier 1 at the HPCA Stadium. RCB, who won their first title in 2025 have shown a complete team effort once again and have ended up as the highest placed team on the points table, this season too. Meanwhile GT, who have been dependent on their top order and a phenomenal bowling lineup, secured a huge win against CSK to seal the 2nd position on the table. Battle of the Pace Royalty One of the major highlights of the much anticipated showdown would be the face-off of the star studded pace lineups. The successful duo of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Josh Hazlewood of Royal Challengers Bengaluru would be matching up with Gujarat Titan's deadly quartet of Rabada, Siraj, Holder, and Prasidh Krishna. Bhuvneshwar and Kagiso Rabada are the current leading wicket-takers of the tournament with 24 wickets each while having an outstanding average of 18.5 and 20.5 respectively. Md. Siraj isn't far as well, having taken down 17 batters this year. Rasikh Salam has proved himself to be a good and stable option as the 3rd frontline pacer for RCB. He has gone on to take 14 wickets at a solid average of 25.29. Meanwhile Hazlewood has been having an on-and-off season. The Aussie star has taken just 12 wickets at an unimpressive average of 34.83 and has also gone for runs at an economy of 9.61. On the other hand, Krishna and Jason Holder have taken 14 and 13 wickets, in just 9 and 7 matches, respectively. While Krishna has been quite expensive this season with an economy rate of more than 10, Holder has turned out to be an excellent choice as the 4th seamer. The former Windies skipper has given just 6.87 runs per over and has proved to be a match winner in the middle overs for his team, ever since he has been included in the playing XI. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@royalchallengers.bengaluru) Top 3 Dependent GT Gujarat Titan's top 3 have definitely been the best top order of the tournament, just like last year. The trio of Sai Sudharshan, Jos Buttler, and skipper Shubman Gill have been responsible for scoring huge amounts of runs, resulting in more than 70% of their team's runs. Sai and Gill are the two leading run-getters of the season with 638 and 616 runs, respectively. The tremendous trio makes use of a cautious approach blended with calculated risk. All three of them are technically sound and thus none of them is ready to give away their wicket easily. However, here lies a giant issue or vulnerability with the batting. The middle and lower order of GT has been quite underwhelming and hasn't done the heavy lifting throughout the season. We have seen the Titans struggle whenever they lose their early wickets. After the top three, we find no big or experienced name of T20 cricket in GT's batting order. This is the one area where RCB will look to exploit and take advantage of GT. The Dilemma of Venky-Salt Phil Salt played a significant role in RCB's title win last year but he has been out for quite a while this season, due to his finger injury. After returning from England, he has joined the RCB camp but hasn't fully recovered yet. On the other hand, Venkatesh Iyer was the Player of the Match against PBKS on the same ground where he scored 73* off 40 balls and then went on to score 44 off 19 in the last league match against SRH. Venky Iyer has a tremendous record in the Playoffs, having scored four 50s in just five innings and is coming after scoring quick runs in two consecuitve matches. So there is no way RCB will think of benching him. It will be interesting to see if Salt plays tonight or not and if he plays, where is Venky adjusted. Threat of Rashid Rashid Khan has been in his top form this year, after going through kind-of average seasons in past some years. He has already picked up 19 wickets at an impressive average of 21.95. This season we have seen glimpses of the young Rashid who used to be too difficult for batters to pick while batting. Rashid has been too good of an asset for GT in the middle overs, alongside Jason Holder. The duo has constantly picked wickets, other than being economical obviously. If RCB have to win this battle tonight, it would be upon the strong Indian core of batters like Iyer, Devdutt Padikkal, skipper Rajat Patidar, Krunal Pandya, and Jitesh Sharma to take down the Afghan wrist-spinner and ensure that their team doesn't give away their wickets to him. Iyer and Padikkal have taken the pressure off batters like Virat Kohli and Patidar in crucial matches while Krunal Pandya has turned out to be a valuable asset with the bat this year, having contributed everytime he is asked to and also rescuing his team from critical situations. Also Read: RCB vs GT: Dharamsala weather, pitch, rain threat, key players RCB's Tactics and Strategy Suyash Sharma has been quite expensive and ineffective throughout the season for RCB. The one game that RCB played here in Dharamshala this year, resulted in Suyash giving away 50 runs in his 4 overs. Meanwhile, in the 3 games held at this venue this season, 30 out of the 36 wickets have been taken by the pacers. Not to forget, dew has been a significant and constant factor in the night matches here. Therefore RCB can and should look to play an extra pacer in Jacob Duffy, replacing the right arm leg break. Romario Shephard was too expensive with the ball in the first half of the season and failed to pick wickets. However he has improved his bowling and also took some wickets in the last 3-4 matches. The issue is his poor form of batting. Romario hasn't scored meaningful runs even in a single match which is quite concerning for RCB. Hence it won't be a bad choice to replace him with Phil Salt and push Venky down the order. The responsibility of hitting and finishing should be taken by Jitesh and Tim David. Now let's address the elephant in the room- Virat Kohli. Since 2024, Kohli has gone on to score 50 or more on 16 occasions and RCB have won each and every one of those 16 matches. This season too, he has survived the powerplay 7 times and guess what- yes, RCB went on to win all of those 7 matches. The other 7 times where he has not survived the powerplay, the Royal Challengers lost 5 of them. So the conclusion is very clear- The longer Virat Kohli stays at the crease, RCB's chances of win keep on increasing. Kohli needs to ensure that he plays a big innings even if it means playing with a slightly lower strike rate. There is a sense of calm and comfort as long as he is unbeaten on the pitch. It allows his partners to play freely without being afraid of losing their wicket. Kohli is the one who ensures and has to ensure tonight as well, that there is no batting collapse and he is one of the constants on the crease. All the batters seem to give their best whenever they are batting around him, whether it is Salt, Padikkal, or even the skipper Rajat himself. It will be very foolish of him and the management if he is the one who takes the responsibility of increasing the run rate and thus perishes. GT have the best bowling and pace lineup among all the teams. Siraj and Rabada bowl out 3 overs each in the powerplay itself, and therefore GT makes no bowling changes in the first 6 overs. This allows them to rotate Holder, Rashid and Krishna very well in the middle overs. The plan should be to unsettle the duo of Siraj-Rabada and force Gill to make early changes. All this has to be done while not giving away wickets.While bowling, RCB must take early wickets. If they are able to dismiss the first three batters of GT early, they'll have a great chance of having the upper hand in the encounter. Bhuvi and Hazlewood must bring their A game tonight and have to take the responsibility of restricting GT batters. RCB's Predicted XI Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar(c), Venkatesh Iyer, Jitesh Sharma(wk), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rasikh Salam, Josh Hazlewood, Jacob Duffy(imp sub)