Dhoni’s men come to Bengaluru to face off against RCB who are set to play their 3 consecutive home games. Both teams are level on points with 2 wins from the 4 games that they have played.
Team Preview
Royal Challengers Banglore
RCB come into this game after a comprehensive win against DC. The openers played their part yet again with another fine fifty by Virat who took apart the Delhi pacers. The roles of the batting lineup seem to be clear and put in action. Faf-Kohli is being asked to play their game and score a bulk of the runs by taking more risks as the game goes on with Maxwell as their primary spin hitter and DK as their primary place hitter. To complement and support these batsmen they are banking on 3 Indian middle-order batsmen and the 2 bowling all-rounders in Harshal and Hasaranga.
With only 200+ sr innings expected from them and being given the task to take on the left-arm spinners, RCB should benefit from taking someone like Suyash over Anuj who is more suited to perform such a role. Suyash has a lot of range with his shots and is a power hitter who can take the game on from ball 1 which is something Anuj lacks. Lomror has the power while Shahbaz has been excellent against pace. It will be interesting to see how they use Harshal and Wanindu. Both of them are good with the bat but are not big hitters. I feel RCB will continue using Harshal up top and Wanindu after DK/Shahbaz as Harshal down the order is not too valuable
The bowling has had yet another successful outing in the powerful. Taking full advantage of the initial movement, Siraj has used his seam movement to trouble the batsmen while Parnell has been very disciplined with his line and lengths. With Vyshak having a good outing, he will most likely perform a similar role to what Harshal has been doing by taking the pace off the middle in the middle overs. Harshal has had another disappointing outing as he missed his lengths and gave too many free runs to the batsmen. Wanindu had no clear idea of what lengths to operate to and this will likely be a one-time occurrence with the Sri Lankan adjusting to Chinnaswamy.
Important Factor: RCB has all the tools to succeed but is yet to figure out its batting order. Apart from their main batsmen, the other batsmen have all been deployed in the wrong positions and have clearly looked uncomfortable with their roles. Shahbaz was promoted when someone like Wanindu could have come in and dealt with spin to let Shahbaz take over the pace bowling.
Only time will tell if Harshal’s promotion has any upside. RCB will need to be smart with their order if they want to stand a chance against CSK’s spin choke in the middle overs. With 2 left-arm spinners, the onus will be on Lomror and Suyash/Anuj to take them apart and give some breathing room to the other batsmen.
Chennai Super Kings
With an extremely long batting lineup and in form Ruturaj in their XI, their fans will want a big score from them. Ruturaj has been in sensational form by taking on any bowler that comes in his way with clean cricketing strokes. The rest of their batting has been disappointing with a lot of vulnerabilities but as a unit, they gel together very well. Rahane scoring some runs will ease up pressure on Conway while the rest of the unit has been hit or miss. All of them have the potential to hit big but fail most of the time which is a spot of concern. Dhoni will look to promote himself and get some runs as he is still their best option in the death against pace. Dube and Rayudu’s performance will dictate the match result if the big guns of both teams fail. The bowling has been disappointing so far but what they bring against RCB is still very threatening.
The pace bowler has no special factor to their bowling after the injuries to Stokes and Chahar who brought something different to the table. With Pretorius set to come in for injured Magala, we can see a better death bowling performance with the South African set to lead their pace attack.
CSK’s spin-overs will decide where they stand in this game. With 12 overs of spin from Theekshana, Ali and Jadeja. Dhoni will have to replicate his past captaincy tricks to hold back this RCB lineup. Moeen has a very good matchup against Kohli and with the left-handers in the RCB XI, he should be another vital player. Theekshana in the powerplay will help slow down the openers who have been on a roll in all the games so far and it will be interesting to see who takes him on. With Kohli struggling against Moeen, we might see him take his better matchup on or we could see Faf trying to take both the spinners on in the initial few overs which will be challenging with the hard ball. Jadeja being their SLA option will be deployed against Maxi who struggles to pick up the trajectory of the ball against Jadeja.
The winner of the game will depend on whether CSK can choke the rcb lineup with their 12 overs of spin or if RCB uses Maxwell effectively and deploy their other Indian batsmen with a more clear plan.
Probable Playing XI
Royal Challengers Banglore: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Wayne Parnell, Mohammed Siraj, Vyshak Vijaykumar
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (c) (wk), Dwaine Pretorius, Maheesh Theekshana, Tushar Deshpande
RCB vs CSK Dream11 Team
Note: This is not our final Dream11 Team as we are not aware of the Toss Result/Final Playing XI of both teams at this moment.
To remain updated and get our final Dream11 Team, Join our Telegram channel Clan For Gamers
