Venue: M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru | Date & Time: 14 May at 1430 GST
BIG PICTURE
The Royals Challengers Bangalore host the Gujarat Lions in an important clash on Saturday. The new Gujarat outfit has looked the part this season and are already being considered to be serious title contenders. RCB will have to play out of their skins if they want to harbour any dreams of staying alive in the competition.
RCB lie in a lowly sixth position in the table and need to win their remaining four games to have any outside possibility of making it to the playoffs. That makes it a must-win fixture for Virat Kohli’s men who have, despite boasting a stellar line-up, underperformed miserably in this year’s IPL.
There are theories galore about why the big names in the Bangalore camp have remained merely harmless paper tigers this season. But the most obvious reason is that the RCB bowlers, barring Shane Watson, have been woefully out of form. The franchise will be hoping for a bit more of a contribution from the big boys, Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers, in the big match against Gujarat.
The Gujarat Lions, on the other hand, have had their phenomenal run of form halted by the humbling 10-wicket thrashing that they received at the hands of table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderbaad. Suresh Raina should not be too worried however and he would like his team to re-assert their supremacy to prove that their last defeat was just a minor aberration. A victory against Kohli’s boys will once again take them to the top of the table.
KEY BATTLES
Aaron Finch vs Shane Watson: The battle to watch out for is between the two Australians. Watson has been in brilliant form with his slow medium pace deliveries and has been miserly while conceding few runs. He has also been picking crucial wickets. Finch has scores of 74, 50 and 67 not out to his name so far though he missed out in the match against SRH.
AB de Villiers vs Dwayne Bravo: Dwayne Bravo is one of the finest all-rounders as he compliments his batting with clever bowling at the death. A clever bowler with a box of tricks, he operates during the middle overs and at the back end of the innings. He will be up against the genius and versatility of AB de Villiers who when on song, can be a butcher in an artist’s cloak.
WATCH OUT FOR
Yet another encounter where Kohli is the player to watch out for
Virat Kohli: The Indian Test captain who has quickly emerged as one of the best players in the world across all formats, has been in incredible form this year in the shortest version of the game. Kohli is currently the orange cap holder having scored 568 runs from 10 matches. He scored a blistering century the last time these two teams met and will once again be the player to watch out for. He will however earnestly hope for some more support from his team-mates to compliment him on this big occasion.
EXPECTED XIs
The RCB is likely to go in with an unchanged team as Kohli seems to be content with the combination. It’s unlikely that the team management will drop Gayle for this all important encounter. Although Chris Jordan has leaked runs, he remains one of Kohli’s main bowlers at the death.
Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Lokesh Rahul (wk), Shane Watson, Sachin Baby, Stuart Binny, Sreesanth Aravind, Chris Jordan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Varun Aaron
Similarly, the Gujarat Lions will not be too fond of changing their set team combinations as they have worked wonders until now. However, they might bring back their mystery spinner Shivil Kaushik to bolster the bowling attack.
Dwayne Smith, Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina, Aaron Finch, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Akashdeep Nath, Dale Steyn/James Faulkner, Pravin Tambe/Shivil Kaushik, Dhawal Kulkarni
STRAIGHT FROM TWITTER