Royal Challengers look to settle scores with Super Kings

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Chennai Super Kings
Wednesday, April 25th 8 pm
M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore

Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on the Chennai Super Kings for the second time this season and will be eager to put one across their southern neighbours this time around.

They are on a high after an incredible win against the Rajasthan Royals at Jaipur. CSK were one of the opponents that RCB had a forgettable first leg game against and they will want to settle scores at home.

Despite Muralitharan missing a few games, the bowling has quite improved since their previous encounter where CSK sneaked ahead with an ambush in the final overs. There might be temptation to play the offspinner against his former franchise but KP Appanna’s brilliant display against Rajasthan should earn him another game.

Chris Gayle was ill on Monday while Virat Kohli had to play in a position he is not familiar with at a very short notice. The duo missed out on runs and will want to make up for it with a stellar display at the Chinnaswamy. Dilshan and de Villiers are a picture of assurance and runs from the other batsmen will largely be a bonus if these two continue the form they showed at Jaipur where they plundered 122* off 45 including 82 off the last 30 balls.

Chennai seem to have settled upon an opening pair after much trying. RCB’s bowlers will want to keep Badrinath in check to heap pressure on du Plessis who has been in terrific form. The pacers Zaheer, Vinay and Harshal Patel don’t have too many wickets to show for their good bowling and against a deep Chennai batting line up, containment will always be the second best option behind taking wickets.

RCB will have Daniel Vettori’s dependable and economical bowling to fall back on. The skipper has been a silent worker stemming the runflows and getting big breakthroughs for the team, he will have to guide Appanna and wisely marshal Dilshan as a bowler if needed.

RCB put in a superb bowling effort to beat CSK the last time they played at Bangalore and they will want to use the home advantage once again to beat them.

The two finalists from the previous year have recovered from their false starts this year, CSK with comfortable wins, RCB with closer, more hard-fought ones. Which experience serves as better preparation will be clear tomorrow.