Chennai: Royal Challenger Bengaluru hopes to drive out 17 years of Jinx hinges in an experienced batting unit while facing familiar enemy Chennai Super Kings on Friday’s IPL match here and discovers his own range.
The Royal Challengers beat the Super Kings only once in the inaugural tournament in 2008. In the current RCB squad, only star Bart Kohli is part of that moment, and now he wants to violate CSK’s bastion for the second time.
But it’s easy to dream. As always, Chennai costumes are built to win their home games on a court that provides a lot of help for the spinners.
They own the strange Ravindra Jadeja and brought back the “old boy” Ravichandran Ashwin at last year’s player auction.
Chennai also added Noor Ahmad, Afghan left arm wrist spinner, and the team performed well against the five-time champion Mumbai Indians a few days ago.
The third played 11 games against Mumbai, and his five wickets hit 70 runs.
The stadium is expected to retain the role of this game as well, and the RCB batsman led by Kohli will have to lift his own game to beat the experienced bowling unit.
Outwit is the keyword here. The Royal Challenger’s batting unit should be smart, much more than downright aggressive to get the CSK’s three-controlled spinning unit, and Kohli should lead the charge.
Negative spins aren’t always Kohli’s strong point to hitting a ball, but he’s shown great progress in the department over the past two years or so.
At the heart of this change is his willingness to do more sweeps/scans of the spinner, and Kohli will have to bring all that expertise to the table in a Friday night blockbuster.
But Kohli alone can’t handle a competent bowling machine, he will need the full support of Phil Salt, Captain Rajat Patidar, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma and others.
Looking at Chepauk’s court, RCB might even consider attracting Jacob Bethell, which could be Tim David, who also offers the left arm rotation option.
They will also keep an eye on the fitness of Pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who missed the first match against KKR due to the lad and will compete in Rasikh Salam if the veteran is right.
On the other hand, the Super Kings will long for their intermediates to find Shivam Dube, Deepak Hooda and Sam Curran falter against MI in the last game.
They should offer more support to Rachin Ravindra and Captain Ruturaj Gaikwad while hoping for another powerful cameo from MS Dhoni.
CSK will also closely monitor the fitness of Ace Pacer Matheesha Pathirana, who missed the match against Mumbai.
Nathan Ellis may be recovering from health in time.
Team (from):
Chennai Super King: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Ms. Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Matheesha Pathirana, Noor Ahmad, Ravichandran Ashwin, Devon Conway, Devon Conway, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Rachin Mukesh Choudhary, Deepak Hooda, Gurjanpreet Singh, Nathan Ellis, Jamie Overton, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Ramakrishnan Ghosh, Shreyas Gopal, Vansh Bedi, Vansh Bedi, Andre Siddarth.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Rajat Patidar (c), Virat Kohli, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, Phil Salt, Jitesh Sharma, Liam Livingstone, Rasikh Salam, Suyash Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Swapnil Singh, Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Nuwan Thushara, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethel, Devdutt Padikkal, Swastik Chhikara, Lungi Ngidi, Abhinandan Singh, Mohit Rathee.
The competition starts at 7.30 pm.
