A hard-fought victory over the Chennai Super Kings has given the Royal Challengers Bangalore a perfect launch pad to brighten their prospects of earning a playoffs berth and that would be confirmed with a win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League encounter on Tuesday.
A hard-fought victory over the Chennai Super Kings has given the Royal Challengers Bangalore a perfect launch pad to brighten their prospects of earning a playoffs berth and that would be confirmed with a win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League encounter on Tuesday. The Sunrisers are virtually out of the race following their seven-wicket loss to the Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday, but with pride at stake; the former would look add more woes to the RCB side.
The Bangalore side’s form has been patchy, but the likes of AB de Villiers, Yuvraj Singh and Chris Gayle have been blooming at the right time for the team. RCB would get a boost if skipper Virat Kohli piled up some runs against Sunrisers Hyderabad. In the bowling department, the pace battery of Mitchell Starc and the seasoned Muttiah
Muralidharan have been delivering the goods and they would be called upon to rise to the occasion again. Sunrisers Hyderabad has been inconsistent throughout this season and is having a poor run on their home ground, losing all the three matches in a row. The previous game saw, Darren Sammy take over the reins of captaincy from Shikhar Dhawan and with handful of games left, it means the West Indian might lead the side.
The Hyderabad team scored a massive 204 against table-toppers Kings XI Punjab, but settled for a less challenging 142 runs against Kolkata on Sunday. The team lost wickets at crucial intervals as the Kolkata bowlers got the better of them and a determined effort by their bowlers was not enough. In batting, Shikhar Dhawan, Aaron Finch, Naman Ojha and KL Rahul need to come up with a breakthrough performance if they are to salvage some pride. Much is also expected from Dale Steyn, Bhuveneshwar Kumar, Amit Mishra and Darren Sammy to nick in some wickets.
The teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Shikhar Dhawan (capt), Dale Steyn, David Warner, Darren Sammy, Amit mishra, Aaron Finch, irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Brendan Taylor, M Henriques, Venugopala Rao, Jason Holder, S Aniruddha, Manprit Juneja, K L Rahul, Amit Paunikar, Naman Ojha, Ricky Bhui, Ashish Reddy, Chama Milind, Parvez Rasool, Prashant Parameswaran and Karn Sharma.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Yuvraj Singh, Mitchell Starc, Albie Morkel, Varun Aaron, Ashok Dinda, Parthiv Patel, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ravi Rampaul, Rilee Rossouw, Harshal Patel, Vijay Zol, Abu Nechim, Sachin Rana, Shadab Jakati, Sandeep Warrier, Tanmay Mishra, Yogesh Takawale and Yuzwendra Chahal.
