Series: Indian Premier League, 2016 Venue: M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru Date & Time: Apr 12, 08:00 PM LOCAL
IPL 2016
IPL 2016
Kohli-led RCB muscle faces SRH test
Royal Challengers Bangalore, with the firepower of Chris Gayle, AB de
Villiers, Shane Watson, and Virat Kohli will play its first match of
this IPL season against David Warner-led Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Virat Kohli (left, standing) and his Royal Challengers Bangalore teammates at a training session at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
This may feel like Royal Challengers Bangalore's year, but it's felt
that way every year. After eight seasons of near misses and
disappointments, RCB has assembled a squad it hopes will finally deliver
it a first Indian Premier League crown.
“With the firepower we've got, opposition teams are going to have to
score a lot of runs against us,” Shane Watson said here on Sunday. And
who can disagree? As RCB prepares to begin its IPL 9 campaign, against
Sunrisers Hyderabad at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Tuesday, Virat
Kohli will seek to work out his best combination.
A batting unit of Watson, Chris Gayle, Kohli and AB de Villiers will
give most fielding captains nightmares, but RCB's problem has often been
a lack of balance. The presence of allrounders Watson and Stuart Binny
should address this to some extent while Kedar Jadhav (who can keep) and
Sarfaraz Khan – who has looked in good touch in the practice games here
– should strengthen the middle order further. Kohli will also ponder
over the batting order: will Watson open with Gayle or will Kohli? And
will de Villiers, who batted at three last season, continue to do so?
The absence of Mitchell Starc (total) and Samuel Badree (for two games
at least) means RCB will field one of Adam Milne, Kane Richardson or
David Wiese. Much will depend on the legspinner Yuzvendra Chahal, RCB's
leading wicket-taker last season, and the likes of Harshal Patel.
Point to prove
Having narrowly missed out on a play-off spot last year, Sunrisers
Hyderabad will arrive in Bengaluru with the intention of making amends.
The captain, David Warner, was the IPL's leading run-maker in 2015. He
made half-centuries both times he faced RCB last season and will want to
make a reprise after a below-par World T20. Shikhar Dhawan, his opening
partner, has a point to prove after being dropped by India for the WT20
semifinal.
SRH will miss Yuvraj Singh, who is out with an ankle injury, but Aditya
Tare and the exciting Deepak Hooda should bolster the batting. On the
bowling front, Ashish Nehra had a great WT20, while Mustafizur Rahman
was good in the three games he played. Since the start of the year,
Kohli has been infallible with the bat, scoring runs by the truckload.
He bore India on his shoulders through the World T20 and elevated
himself several levels above his colleagues. The prospect of watching
him lead RCB now should be enthralling.
Teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad
(From): Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner(c), Moises Henriques, Naman
Ojha(w), Eoin Morgan, Deepak Hooda, Karn Sharma, Bipul Sharma,
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Nehra, Kane Williamson, Ben
Cutting, Trent Boult, Aditya Tare, Tirumalsetti Suman, Ashish Reddy,
Vijay Shankar, Barinder Sran, Ricky Bhui, Siddarth Kaul, Abhimanyu
Mithun, Yuvraj Singh
Royal Challengers Bangalore
(From): Chris Gayle, Shane Watson, Virat Kohli(c), AB de Villiers,
Stuart Binny, Sarfaraz Khan, Kedar Jadhav(w), David Wiese, Yuzvendra
Chahal, Varun Aaron, Harshal Patel, Abu Nechim, Kane Richardson, Mandeep
Singh, Iqbal Abdulla, Sreenath Aravind, Sachin Baby, Adam Milne, Vikas
Tokas, Akshay Karnewar, Praveen Dubey, Travis Head, Vikramjeet Malik,
Samuel Badree
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