Royal Challengers Bangalore welcome Gujarat Lions to the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday with both sides knowing that nothing but a win will be good enough.
Each franchise now faces the very real prospect of an early exit from this year’s IPL and the loser of this match will be all-but out of Playoff contention.
It sets up an intriguing, thriller of a match with so much on the line for both strugglers.
Ahead of the match, we have the latest team news, start time and date, as well as how you can watch all the action from the UAE.
DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO
Date: April 27, 2017 (Thursday)
Time: 18:30 GST, 20:00 local time (IST), 14:30 GMT
Venue: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO
TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Sony Six, Sony Six HD (English), Sony Max, Sony Max HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports
Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)
LIVE: Sport360.com
TEAM NEWS, SQUADS, PREDICTED XIs
RCB SQUAD: Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Sreenath Aravind, Kedar Jadhav, Stuart Binny, Samuel Badree, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Iqbal Abdullah, Avesh Khan, Tabraiz Shamsi, Pawan Negi, Tymal Mills, Aniket Choudhary, Praveen Dubey, Billy Stanlake, Vishnu Vinod, Harpreet Singh
A washout followed Royal Challengers’ record lowest total (49) in the history of the IPL against the Knight Riders, heaping the pressure on Virat Kohli’s men.
The team has been suffering so far with their foreign contingent not making anywhere near the impact either expected or hoped.
AB de Villiers is due a biggie, while Tymal Mills and Chris Gayle are running out of chances to deliver and may make way, with Shane Watson an option for the latter.
PREDICTED RCB XI: Kohli (c), Watson, de Villiers, Mandeep, Jadhav, Binny, Negi, Badree, Aravind, Mills, Chahal
GL SQUAD: Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, James Faulkner, Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Dwayne Smith, Dinesh Karthik, Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar, Andrew Tye, Ishan Kishan, Pradeep Sangwan, Shivil Kaushik, Shadab Jakati, Jaydev Shah, Nathu Singh, Basil Thampi, Tejas Singh Baroka, Manpreet Gony, Jason Roy, Munaf Patel, Chirag Suri, Shelly Shaurya, Shubham Agrawal, Pratham Singh, Aksh Deep Nath
There is plenty of power in the top-five of the batting lineup and this side is far more capable than the performances they have put up so far.
A man who looks increasingly like having had one too many chances is Dwayne Smith and the West Indian will be fortunate to hold onto his place in the side, with Jason Roy and James Faulkner looking far better options.
The bowlers are a bit less flexible but, again, there are already plenty of options, the players just need to put together a complete performance.
PREDICTED GL XI: Finch, McCullum, Raina, Karthik (wk), Roy, Jadeja, Nath, Tye, Thampi, Agarwal, Singh
FORM
(Last five matches – with latest match first)
RCB: T L W L L
GL: L W L L W
MATCH PREDICTION
Both teams to somehow lose, or a washout? A bit fanciful [especially the former!] but neither looks capable of stringing a win together at the minute. If we have to pick a winner it’s RCB, with Kohli putting on a masterclass.