RCB look forward to the game against Chennai Super Kings with renewed enthusiasm thanks to AB de Villiers.
AB de Villiers showed just why he is considered to be the most talented batsman of his generation, smashing a brilliant match winning innings in the last game against Delhi Daredevils, making an unbeaten 90 off just 39 balls.
He will be expected to do more of the same for the remaining matches of the Indian Premier League 2018. AB performing well does take some of the pressure off Virat Kohli. Kohli may be a great batsman, but he can’t do it alone. He needs help from AB de Villiers and hopefully from Quinton de Kock on a regular basis if he is going to win more games for RCB.
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Chennai Super Kings have done pretty well in this IPL so far and we would be very surprised if they don’t make it to the top 4 at least. For CSK, at least one batsman has performed in every game. They are a very good team with a plenty of all-rounders. At any point of time MS Dhoni can call upon 8 bowlers, and have a batting line-up with potential match winners right up to no. 8. That is a very good team indeed.
RCB and CSK are evenly matched. While RCB does not have the sort of all-rounders that CSK have, they have 3 very good players who can win matches on any day – Virat and AB, and Umesh Yadav, who has been the best fast bowler in Indian Premier League 2018.
The only issue for RCB seems to be getting support for their top performers. Their supporting cast is woefully inadequate.
Not even one RCB batsmen has made a 50-plus score apart from Kohli and AB de Villiers. Yes, Mandeep Singh made 47 in a losing cause, but that’s about it.
As for team news, CSK will have to decide on bringing leg spinner Imran Tahir back. They probably won’t bring him back as Karn Sharma did very well in the last game. They would instead prefer to shore up their batting with Faf du Plessis at the top.
The Teams
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Manan Vohra 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Mandeep Singh, 6 Corey Anderson/Colin de Grandhomme, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Mohammed Siraj/Kulwant Khejroliya, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Sam Billings, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Dwayne Bravo, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Deepak Chahar, 10 Karn Sharma, 11 Shardul Thakur
Watch Royal Challengers Bangalore play Chennai Super Kings tonight at 8 pm LIVE on Star Sports!
