It’s the battle of the royals, as Rajasthan Royals take on the might of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Eliminator. Whoever wins this match takes on the loser of the match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians for a spot in the final. So, both Rajasthan Royals and RCB are still 3 matches away from winning the IPL 2015, if everything goes to plan.
For Rajasthan Royals, things looked really tense for quite a while in the latter half of the tournament and they came close to losing out on a spot in the playoffs. This was surprising because they pretty much dominated the initial stages of the IPL 2015. It took a change in captaincy and the passing of the baton from Shane Watson to a super aggressive and extremely eager Steve Smith to bring about a change in fortune.
Steve Smith is a young cricketer in a hurry, a world class batsman and a born leader who just loves captaincy. Shane Watson has always been an individualist, a superb all-round cricketer who was a misfit for captaincy. So, making Steve Smith the captain was a brilliant decision as it freed Watson to do what he does best – dominate T20 matches with his ferocious batting and tight bowling.
That’s what happened as Watson a brilliant 104 not out against the Kolkata Knight Riders in a very tense match to ensure that his side made it to the playoffs. Ajinkya Rahane has been brilliant for the Rajasthan side as well, and has made 498 runs in the tournament already, from 13 games. It remains to be seen if he beats David Warner’s tally of 562 and becomes the most prolific batsman in the tournament. Warner, of course, won’t be a part of the competition anymore as his Hyderabad Sunrisers are out.
Others like James Faulkner, Chris Morris and the young Indian players such as Sanju Samson, Karun Nair and Dhawal Kulkarni have been tremendous as well.
Royal Challengers Bangalore too have been brilliant in this tournament and would have picked up many more points had it not been for the poor weather in Bangalore which has led to many matches being called off. In Chris Gayla, Virat Kohli and AB De Villers, the Bangalore outfit have the three best batsmen in the world, by far. AB De Villiers, in particular, has been sensational. His 133 not out against the Mumbai Indians is probably the innings of the IPL 2015 so far.
The RCB bowling is led by the fast and accurate Mitchell Starc, but apart from Starc, there really isn’t much there in the bowling department. Varun Aaron has disappointed and the rest of the bowlers are nowhere close to being good enough. So, definitely, there is a glaring weakness for the Rajasthan Royals to exploit.
At IndiaBet.org, we expect Rajasthan Royals to win this match, as they have far greater depth in both batting and bowling – but this is only as long as their top batsmen see off Mitchell Starc.
The Teams:
Rajasthan Royals: Steve Smith (capt), Shane Watson, Ajinkya Rahane, James Faulkner, Deepak Hooda, Sanju Samson (wk), Karun Nair, Dhawal Kuikarni, Tim Southee, Stuart Binny, Chris Morris, Pravin Tambe, Abhishek Nayar, Pardeep Sahu, Rusty Theron, Dinesh Salunkhe, Vikramjit Malik, Rahul Tewatia, Rajat Bhatia, Sagar Trivedi, Dishant Yagnik and Ankit Sharma.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (capt), Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Mitchell Starc, Ashok Dinda, Harshal Patel, Vijay Zol, Abu Nechim, Nic Maddinson, Varun Aaron, Manvinder Bisla, Mandeep Singh, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Sean Abbott, Sarfaraz Khan, Jalaj Saxena, Shishir Bhavane, Sreenath Arvind.
Watch RCB take on Rajasthan Royals this Wednesday in the first Eliminator of IPL 2015 at 8:00 PM on Sony Six!
