Whenever the Royal Challengers Bangalore meet the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL), as they will do on Wednesday at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, it is considered as a coming together of two of the true powerhouses of the IPL.
In fact nothing could be further from the truth.
While the Super Kings are perennial challengers for silverware, whether in the IPL or the Champions League, Bangalore has not appeared in an IPL final since 2008, when they were beaten by Chennai, and indeed they have failed to even qualify for the semi-finals since that year.
The nearest they have come to success since then, was a losing appearance in the final of the Champions League in 2011, when they were defeated by the Mumbai Indians.
Currently bottom of the table with just one win in their three games so far, Bangalore certainly retain the ability to beat any of the other teams in the tournament on a given day, with their explosive international batting line up. Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, and AB de Villiers appear in the top five of their order, and any one of them would be selected for any other side on earth in the T20 format of the game.
However, it is the arrival of Mitchell Starc, who was the joint leading wicket taken at the ICC World Cup, that they hope will kick start their season,
Chennai lost their unbeaten record last Sunday, when the Rajasthan Royals beat them comfortable by eight wickets in the top of the table clash, The Super Kings do however remain in second place in the table, as they seek to maintain their impressive record of having made the semi-finals every year that the IPL has been played.
In Brendon McCullum, Chennai probably have the only player in the world who is even more explosive than the players in the Bangalore lineup.
Wednesday promises to be a high scoring contest, with plenty of the crowd ducking and diving from some monstrous hits.