Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on Chennai Super Kings in the 24th match of the 16th edition of the Indian Premier League at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Monday.
What have they done so far?
RCB and CSK are two of the most popular IPL franchises in the history of the competition. However, both teams are struggling to find form currently.
The team from Bengaluru started off its campaign with a thumping eight-wicket victory against five-time champions, Mumbai Indians. However, they were outclassed in their next game against Kolkata Knight Riders losing the match by 81 runs.
Sadly, despite putting up 212 runs on the board against Lucknow Super Giants, thanks to an amazing display of batting by Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli, and Glenn Maxwell, RCB was no match to LSG’s counter-attack, orchestrated by Nicholas Pooran and Marcus Stoinis and lost the match on the last ball.
Reece Topley injured his shoulder and will miss the rest of the season
To add salt to the wounds of the loss against KKR, RCB lost Reece Topley to injury, who had taken the IPL by storm. However, Wayne Parnell and Md Siraj have been pretty clinical and it’s safe to say that RCB will be relying on the two to lead their bowling attack.
The Bengaluru-based franchise currently find themselves in the bottom half of the table, insinuating that they need to win their subsequent matches to try to make it to the playoffs.
CSK kicked off their campaign with a defeat at the hands of defending champions Gujarat Titans. Rituraj Gaikwad, despite finding himself in murky waters last time around, played a sublime innings of 92 runs. Sadly, his effort ended up in a losing cause as GT defeated the four-time champions by five wickets.
Their subsequent game, which was against LSG, ended up being an over 400-run thriller, which was yet again orchestrated by Gaikwad and Devon Conway. The Supergiants came close but lost the match by 12 runs.
MS Dhoni’s men then took on their arch-nemesis Mumbai Indians and the Super Kings outlassed Rohit Sharma’s team yet again to win the match with seven wickets to spare.
However, it was CSK’s game against Rajasthan Royals that authors pen novels about. While the total wasn’t as big, as RR scored 175 runs, CSK’s chase began in a rollercoaster fashion. Despite the heroics of MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja in the dying embers of the game, the Chennai-based franchise could only muster 172 runs and lost the match by three runs.
Head to Head record
The two IPL behemoths have squared off 30 times. The four-time IPL champions have bragging rights against RCB, for having 19 matches. The Royal Challengers have recorded 10 wins against CSK, while one match has ended up with no result.
Key Players
Virat Kohli has been in sublime form this season
Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bangalore): Kohli was criticized for his performances in the shortest format of the game last time around. However, he was one of India’s key players in the ICC T20 World Cup and has started off the 16th edition of the IPL in similar fashion.
Kolhi tops the list of the batters with most runs in the IPL. He has over 6700 runs in the IPL, which includes five centuries and 47 half-centuries. He also scored nearly 1,000 runs in the 2016 edition of IPL, which is the highest by any player.
He has been instrumental in most of what RCB has managed to achieve in the history of the competition and will undoubtedly play a crucial role in the subsequent games.
Rituraj Gaikwad (Chennai Super Kings): Gaikwad went through a lean patch last season. However, he started off this season in extraordinary fashion, he scored 92 runs in the first match of the new season, followed by a score of 57, 40 and 8 respectively.
He has established himself as a force to be reckoned with and is a strong contender to vie for that opening spot in the Indian T20 squad.
Predicted XIs
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis ©, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Anuj Rawat, David Willey, Wayne Parnell, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni ©, Mitchell Santner, Sisanda Magala, Tushar Deshpande, Rajwardhan Hangargekar
Prediction
While the Super Kings are in a better shape than the Royal Challengers at the moment, it would be a tough ask for CSK to mount the loud and roaring M Chinaswamy Stadium on Monday if the trio of du Plessis, Kohli, and Maxwell click together.