Royal Challengers Bangalore will meet Gujarat Lions in a battle which will decide the fate of their play off chances in the ongoing VIVO IPL10 2017. Both are injured tigers and need wins desperately, not just one or two but six out of the seven matches remaining for them. The team which loses today will be under tremendous pressure and it will be almost all over for that side.
So its is going to be Samuel Badree vs Brendon McCullam and Jadeja vs Chris Gayle tonight. RCB scored a thrilling 21-run win when then met last week despite McCullum’s fireworks and more importantly RCB have a better record against Lions in the IPL. Gayle and Virat Kohli put up a century stand when they met this year and they want to repeat it today. Their bowlers are doing a good job in particular Chahal and Badree. But they are not playing as a unit and they can’t expect the miracles to happen like year.
Gujrat Lions have a strong batting line up and their main worry is their bowling, which is pretty mediocre. They are unfortunately now going to miss the services of Bravo who has been ruled out. But what they have to do now is they should open with McCulam and Smith instead of making experiments. MeCullam has a poor record against Badree, while Virat Kohli has 91 average against Lions which should give him more confidence today.
In yesterday”s match Kolkatta Knightriders had a cakewalk against Rising Pune Supergaints at Pune and they are almost certain of a playoff berth along with Mumbai Indians. Robin Uttappa and Gautam Ghambir scored fine half centuries as they chased 180 plus target quite comfortably.
Teams:
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
Gujarat Lions: 1 Brendon McCullum, 2 Aaron Finch/Jason Roy/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 Shubham Agarwal/Praveen Kumar/Dhawal Kulkarni, 11 Nathu Singh
By Sudheer Mahavadi – DD Commentator
