Okay! Here we go again! It’s that time of the year in India. It’s IPL time! IPL 2017 starts tomorrow with a match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
RCB are of course, the most glamorous side in the IPL, with the likes of Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle playing for them. They also have KL Rahul, who has impressed as an opener for India, having recently scored 6 half-centuries in the Test series against Australia.
[table id=33 /]
But Virat, as everybody knows, has injured his shoulder and will be out of the IPL for at least a few weeks. AB is also carrying an injury and will miss a few games. Rahul is injured as well, and he is likely to miss out the entire season of the IPL.
To make it worse, even young Sarfaraz Khan, the 18-year old who impressed one and all in the last season of the IPL, badly hurt his leg during practice and has been ruled out of the entire season of the IPL. This is disastrous for RCB, and they are probably the unluckiest side in IPL history.
I don’t have to remind our readers about what has happened to the former owner of RCB, billionaire Vijay Mallya. Mallya is no longer a billionaire today. He has cost the national exchequer thousands of crores and fled to the UK as a fugitive. The Indian government has been fighting to get him extradited from the UK to face the law in an Indian court.
This just goes to show that lady luck isn’t smiling on RCB. They are likely to struggle against Sunrisers Hyderabad, who are a young and ambitious team led by David Warner, one of the most successful overseas players to feature in the history of the IPL.
They would be without Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman, as he is still playing in Sri Lanka till April 8. But apart from that, they look good, with no major injury worries.
Sunrisers have a very good new ball attack in Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ashish Nehra, both of whom play for the national team. They are backed by England’s Chris Jordan, who bowls a mean yorker and is pretty useful in the death overs.
Yuvraj Singh and Shikhar Dhawan are two Indian players in Sunrisers team who will want to prove themselves. Moises Henriques had a very good year last IPL, and he will want to do well this time as well.
RCB will depend heavily on the two veterans, Chris Gayle and Shane Watson, who will be backed by Travis Head of Australia and India’s own Kedar Jadhav.
The Teams
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Moises Henriques, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Deepak Hooda, 6 Naman Ojha (wk), 7 Ben Cutting/Chris Jordan, 8 Bipul Sharma, 9 Rashid Khan, 10 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 11 Ashish Nehra
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Mandeep Singh, 3 Travis Head, 4 Shane Watson (capt), 5 Kedar Jadhav (wk), 6 Sachin Baby, 7 Stuart Binny, 8 Pawan Negi, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 Tymal Mills, 11 Aniket Choudhary
Watch RCB take on Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday at 8:00 PM on Sony Six.
[table id=16 responsive=”tablet”/]
