IPL 2021 : SRH V RCB Preview

SRH V RCB – HEAD TO HEAD : 18 MATCHES

SRH WON : 10, RCB WON : 7, NR : 1

Royal Challengers Bangalore started off their IPL campaign with a win over defending champions Mumbai Indians. Harshal Patel starred with the ball, picking up a five-wicket haul, restricting the defending champions to 159. RCB looked in complete control of the chase for most part of their innings but eventually made it difficult for themselves by losing wickets in quick succession. In the end, it was AB de Villiers, for the umpteenth time, who emerged as their savior and hauled them out of the trouble.

On the contrary, Sunrisers Hyderabad had to face a 10 run defeat against the Knight Riders in their opening fixture. Chasing 188 at Chepauk was never going to be easy and they probably left too much to do towards the end.

Kane Williamson couldn’t make it into the SRH playing XI due to fitness issues, is now available for the selection. You wouldn’t want to miss out on a player of Kane Williamson’s caliber but such has been Sunrisers’ team combination. They  can’t drop Rashid Khan, Bairstow looked in sensational touch in the last match and Mohammad Nabi can be really effective with his spin in Chennai. Although, there might be a case of bringing in Shahbaz Nadeem in place of Sandeep Sharma in order to get Kane Williamson in the playing XI but that looks unlikely.

Devdutt Padikkal is available for selection and is expected to be back at the top of the order. Either of Rajat Patidar or Shahbaz Ahmed is likely to make way for him. Glenn Maxwell looked in superb touch in the tournament opener and RCB would want him to continue the same way. Washington Sundar didn’t ball against MI in the powerplay but expect RCB to pitch him against David Warner straightaway from the start. Yuzvendra Chahal, who looked off-colour in the last match would back himself to bowl well. RCB would want him to make full use of conditions at the chepauk.

It is going to be another hot and humid day at the Chepauk. Team winning the toss would want to bat first even though there’s a possibility of dew later in the second innings. We saw the previous night, the ball was still turning in the presence of dew. Both the teams would want their spinners to be at top of their games.

Probabale XIs :

SRH :  David Warner (C), Wriddhiman Saha, Manish Pandey, Jonny Bairstow, Mohammad Nabi, Vijay Shankar, Abdul Samad, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shahbaz Nadeem/Sandeep Sharma, T Natarajan

RCB :  Virat Kohli (C), Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Washington Sundar, Daniel Christian, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Mohammad Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal