The 18th game of the Champions League T20 will be played between Lions and Bangalore at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. This is a virtual knock-out of a game, and the winner of the match will go on to join South Australia in the semi-finals. 
Lions have four points from three games, whereas Anil Kumble’s Bangalore have two from three. If Lions win, they will be through to the semi-finals by a distance, but if the Bangalore side wins, both the teams will have the same number of points. This will mean that the second-placed will then be decided through the net run-rate, something that the Bangalore team already has the better of the Lions. A win will only put them further up in the net run-rate scenario. 
Bangalore had started the tournament off very well, with a convincing thrashing of the Guyanese side, but two matches later, they are struggling to survive in the competition. They lost the game to South Australia rather easily after their main players, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn were injured, and then were beaten narrowly by Mumbai Indians.
In fact, the Bangalore captain was at loss for words after his loss to the Mumbai side, and said that they were just plain unlucky to lose a close game.
The problem for the side has been the lack of form of the middle-order. In both the games that they lost, the side had failed to get a partnership going in the middle and that is the one thing they will look to change in this game.
Lions have been consistent in the tournament so far. They did lose to the South Australian Redbacks, but it was a close game and have beaten the Mumbai Indians and Guyana rather easily. Their bowling may not have too many big names, but the likes of Ethan O’Reilly and Craig Alexander have been doing a good job so far and should be threats to the Bangalore side.
What has been surprising is that the Lions batting has done rather well so far. Against Mumbai, it was Jonathon Vandiar and Neil Mckenzie who stole the show, and this has been followed by a couple of half-centuries by Alviro Petersen. With Richard Cameron also finding form in the previous game, it will make sense for the Bangalore side to analyse the batsmen carefully before getting into the game.