Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad were the finalists of IPL 2016. They were the two best teams of last season, but have looked anything but that this time around.
Sunrisers Hyderabad to be fair, have done okay. They are third in the points table having lost to Rising Pune by six wickets in their last game. But they have beaten Delhi Daredevils by 15 runs and Punjab Kings XI by five runs before that.
Royal Challengers Bangalore are last in the IPL 2017 table. This is not something you expect from a team that has Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle – three of the greatest players in the history of T20 cricket.
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But they suffered a humiliating defeat to KKR, making just 49 runs in their reply to the KKR first innings score of 131. That was the lowest IPL score of all time. The entire RCB team was dismissed before in the 9th over itself. That was shocking, to say the least.
If RCB want to qualify for the play-offs, which looks impossible at this point, they have to score at least 16 points. This means they have to win 6 of their remaining 7 games and hope for the best.
Sunrisers Hyderabad are doing pretty well. They were defeated by a special knock by MS Dhoni in the last match – a terrific last-ball finish – but they should make it to the play offs easily. For them, Kane Williamson has justified his selection having scored 110 in his first two games at a stunning strike rate of 170. Yuvraj Singh has not done much but he will play this game for sure against the RCB.
Ashish Nehra should get to play as well keeping in mind his amazing record against Virat Kohli. No Indian bowler has dismissed Virat as many times as Nehra, the world’s oldest fast bowler.
The Teams
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Virat Kohli (capt), 2 Chris Gayle, 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Mandeep Singh, 5 Kedar Jadhav (wk), 6 Stuart Binny, 7 Pawan Negi, 8 Samuel Badree, 9 Tymal Mills, 10 S Aravind, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Kane Williamson, 4 Moises Henriques, 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 Naman Ojha (wk), 7 Deepak Hooda, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Siddarth Kaul/Ashish Nehra, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Watch Royal Challengers Bangalore take on Sunrisers Hyderabad tonight at 8 PM Live on Sony Six!
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