Much is expected from Rising Pune Supergiants and Royal Challengers Bangalore. After all, they are led by the two most important men ion Indian cricket – MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. But neither team has lived up to the massive expectations of their fans.
Both teams have had similar runs in the IPL 2016 so far, having won their first match quite impressively, but losing in the next two. Supergiants would desperately hope to win tomorrow’s match, as they face the prospect of moving out of their home ground Pune for the remaining matches, because of a ruling by the Mumbai High Court.
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Royal Challengers are without Chris Gayle, who is in Jamaica right now to be with his partner, for the birth of his first child. Indian Test opening batsman KL Rahul will take Gayle’s spot in the line-up. But really, there is no comparison. Rahul is a sedate Test batsman and can never be a replacement for Gayle, reckoned by many to be the greatest T20 batsman in the short history of the format.
Australian Travis Head has done well in the one chance that he was given so far. He does seem like a great prospect indeed. But the player to watch out for, for the RCB, is young Sarfaraz Khan, all of 18, and already the most talked about cricketer in this IPL.
Every IPL produces a young Indian superstar, and it does look like Sarfaraz is going to create the biggest impression this season. He has all the shots in the book and a few more that are all his own. It is rare to see a young cricketer playing with so much confidence. We can certainly see Sarfaraz play for India soon.
The big problem the Royal Challengers have is their bowling. They just don’t have a settled lineup. West Indies T20 star Samuel Badree is out because of an injury suffered in the T20 final. His replacement, Tabraiz Shamsi of South Africa, hasn’t played a game as yet.
For the Supergiants, Dhoni will have a lot of thinking to do. Nothing that he has done has worked so far. We expect Thisara Perera and Irfan Pathan to come in for Mitchell Marsh and Rajat Bhatia as like-for-like replacements.
The Supergiants batting has been dominated by Faf du Plessis, who has made 170 runs in three matches. But the middle order hasn’t done much at all and Dhoni’s form leaves much to be desired. One wonders if his heart is really in it.
The Teams
Rising Pune Supergiants: 1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Kevin Pietersen, 4 Steven Smith, 5 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 6 Mitchell Marsh/Albie Morkel/Thisara Perera, 7 Rajat Bhatia/Irfan Pathan, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Ankit Sharma, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 M Ashwin
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Virat Kohli (capt), 2 KL Rahul, 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Shane Watson, 5 Travis Head, 6 Sarfaraz Khan, 7 Stuart Binny, 8 Harshal Patel, 9 Kane Richardson, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal/Iqbal Abdullah, 11 Varun Aaron/S Aravind
Match Conditions
The Pune track has a reputation of being a seamer friendly one. But it is doubtful if we will get a seaming deck tomorrow. There are no rains expected, so we will have a full day’s play.
Watch Rising Pune Supergiants play Royal Challengers Bangalore tomorrow at 8:00 pm LIVE on Sony Six!
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