Royal Challengers Bangalore have had a horrible IPL 2017 to say the least. They were humiliated in their last game against Kolkata Knight Riders, having lost all 10 wickets in the 9th over for just 49 runs – the lowest score in IPL history.
Their last match was washed off because of the rain in Bangalore, so they find themselves having to win all of their remaining games to qualify for the play offs.
Gujarat Lions are not well placed either. They are last in the IPL 2017 points table and are considered to be the weakest team in the competition. They lost the last time they played Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs, in spite of a brilliant 44-ball 72 from veteran Brendon McCullum.
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The teams have only met four times so far. Royal Challengers have won three of those matches and lost only once. Gujarat Lions have lost to Kings XI Punjab by 26 runs but were able to beat Kolkata Knight Riders by 4 wickets in their last two games.
For Gujarat Lions, ace allrounder Dwayne Bravo has been ruled out of the entire season because of a serious hamstring injury. This is a disappointing end to Bravo’s IPL 2017. He has only played one match in the whole season. He was critical to Gujarat Lions’ plans and his absence has meant that they have struggled.
The Lions have signed up ex-India played Irfan Pathan as a replacement. This is a strange choice given that Pathan has never done well in the IPL and does not really pose any threat with his medium paced bowling. He is not even nearly as fast as he was in 2009, and at 32 he seems to be a washed up cricketer. He has played for 6 IPL franchises so far but has never really done anything much.
Bangalore is finally getting some rain, which is wonderful news for the city which has been struggling with a drought this summer. But this is not great news for RCB. The weather department forecasts thundershowers later this evening. If this match gets washed out, RCB can wave their chances of making it to the play offs goodbye.
The 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
Watch Royal Challengers Bangalore take on Gujarat Lions tonight at 8 pm on Sony Six!
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