Rajasthan Royals vs. Royal Challengers Bangalore – Let’s be honest. This is one match nobody wants to see. True, both sides have very good players – Virat Kohli, AB De Villiers for RCB, Ben Stokes, Steven Smith and Joss Buttler for Rajasthan.
Still – 3 losses in 3 games is not encouraging by any means. Thankfully, since the two teams are squaring off against each other, one team will get its first win of the IPL 2019 while for the other, their pathetic IPL run shall continue. 4 losses in 4 games.
How do you get out of that? You can’t. That is why this match is so important for both RCB and RR. Neither team can afford to lose this one. Lose, and say goodbye to your IPL prospects.
But can you really blame them for it? Well, RCB have been very poor, but the Royals have been more unfortunate than poor. They have been close to winning each of the last three matches, but ended up losing all of them.
The Royals have shown a remarkable absence of killer instinct. They have been too nice and gentlemanly – but in cricket, gentlemen come 2nd. Remember that match against Kings XI Punjab when the Royals were robbed blind by R Ashwin?
Well, Ashwin showed killer instinct then. True, he met with a lot of criticism for using unfair means to dismiss the set Joss Buttler, but 1 week later, who cares? Kings XI are in the top-4 and Royals are staring at an exit from the IPL 2019 so early in the tournament.
As for RCB, they have realized that relying only on Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers is the reason they have never won a single IPL tournament. This time, the supporting cast is even worse than the one they had in IPL 2018. We expect this to be another poor IPL for RCB. Their fans must be feeling totally dejected.
The Teams
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Rahul Tripathi, 5 Steven Smith, 6 Ben Stokes, 7 K Gowtham, 8 Shreyas Gopal, 9 Jofra Archer, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 Varun Aaron
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Marcus Stoinis, 2 Parthiv Patel (wk), 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Shivam Dube, 6 Colin de Grandhomme, 7 Prayas Ray Burman, 8 Nathan Coulter-Nile, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Mohammad Siraj, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Prediction: Rajasthan Royals are a better team than RCB and should win this one, especially in home conditions.
