Rock solid Bengaluru face resurgent Gujarat challenge in high-stakes Qualifier 1 of IPL at Dharamshala today

Royal Challengers Bengaluru will carry the quiet confidence of defending champions into Qualifier 1 when they face Gujarat Titans in a high-stakes clash at the HPCA Stadium on Tuesday.

- 

GT's Vijay Shankar during a training session in Dharamshala on Monday.

The winner goes straight to the final in Ahmedabad on Sunday, while the loser will need to take the longer road to get into the title clash.

Both sides ended the league stage on 18 points from 14 matches, with RCB claiming top spot on net run rate, as a reward for being the most consistently good side across the full league stage. When RCB cruised to a chase of 206 against GT in their backyard on April 24, the Shubman Gill-led side were still a conservative side stuck in the middle of the points table.

From that point, GT have surged to be the best bowling side in the competition and now find themselves in the running to get their second IPL title.

But they run into an in-form RCB who have got a lot of things going in their favour - captain Rajat Patidar is in good nick, so as Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Venkatesh Iyer and Tim David.

Consistent returns from the new-ball pairing of Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar along with Krunal Pandya being frugal have helped RCB too.