New Delhi:
Royal Challengers Bangalore shall be taking on Gujarat Lions in an IPL encounter later on Wednesday evening at the MA Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
The match is scheduled to commence at 8 PM. The two sides have locked horns against each other on four occasions in the past with RCB winning three of those encounters. Royal Challengers Bangalore had inflicted a humiliating defeat on Gujarat Lions in the game played out between the two sides at Rajkot.
The last match at the Chinnaswamy, between Royal Challengers and Sunrisers Hyderabad, was washed out without a ball bowled. Meanwhile, Gujarat Lions placed right at the bottom of the table, lost to Kings XI Punjab by 26 runs.
Both the sides have been struggling for form since the inception of the tournament and their place at the bottom of the table is a testimony to the same. RCB were decimated by KKR at Eden Gardens when their formidable batting line-up was bowled out for a paltry 49 runs.
Their big guns like Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and Shane Watson have been completely out of sorts. RCB and Gujarat lack the venom in their bowling attack to bowl out sides and hence look for their batting to put up imposing totals.
Gujarat Lions have the requisite arsenal in their batting with the likes of Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith and Suresh Raina who have been among the runs in the tournament. Wicket-keeper Dinesh Kartik has been providing the acceleration down the order to help the team finish with a flourish.Ace all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has been pretty disappointing all through the tournament.
Irfan Pathan has been signed as a replacement for injured Dwayne Bravo who has been ruled out of the tournament.Pathan can give the Lions much required balance missing from their team.
Tymal Mills has been pretty up and down this season and Adam Milne hasn't been a regular starter in the playing eleven. Gujarat Lions have also lacked the firepower in their seam attack with heavy reliance on Indian medium pacers like Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar and Basil Thampi.
Gujarat Lions lacks a frontline spinner and hence haven't been able to choke the runs in the middle overs. RCB shall be looking at Samuel Badree and Yuzvendra Chahal to make dents in Gujarat Lions batting lineup.
So definitely is a battle of the bottom-placed teams looking for a desperate win to diminish their elimination hopes from the IPL.
Likely Playing Eleven
Gujarat Lions
1 Brendon McCullum, 2 Aaron Finch James Faulkner, 3 Suresh Raina (capt), 4 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 5 Dwayne Smith, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Ishan Kishan, 8 Andrew Tye, 9 Basil Thampi, 10 Praveen Kumar/Dhawal Kulkarni, 11 Nathu Singh
Royal Challengers Bangalore:
1 Chris Gayle/Travis Head/Shane Watson, 2 Virat Kohli (capt), 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Kedar Jadhav (wk), 5 Mandeep Singh, 6 Stuart Binny, 7 Pawan Negi, 8 Tymal Mills/Adam Milne, 9 Samuel Badree, 10 S Aravind, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
