Taking away the emotion factor, there is a lot both teams have to play for as they work towards securing their playoffs berth. CSK, despite their impressive 20-run triumph over Mumbai Indians, will be keen to sort out their batting. They lost 4 for 24 and, but for a spectacular innings from Ruturaj Gaikwad, would have struggled to put up a good score on the board.
While Faf du Plessis’ and Moeen Ali’s dismissals can be seen as a one-off failure, a lot of eyes will be on senior batter Suresh Raina. He looked worse than a rookie against MI’s fast bowlers. Apart from the half-century in CSK’s first match of the season, Raina hasn’t done anything of note. Time is running out for him. Dhoni has also looked out of touch and his case seems to be one of age-related decline.
As for RCB, they did not play like the team that impressed massively in the first half. It was a catastrophic batting effort as the entire team crumbled to 92 all out against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). As a team, RCB will have to lift themselves. The franchise will expect seniors like Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers to stand up against CSK. With the ball, Yuzvendra Chahal’s performance will be under the scanner.
RCB had just the one bad game so one shouldn’t expect any changes to the playing XI for the game against CSK.
RCB Predicted XI: Virat Kohli (c), Devdutt Padikkal, Srikar Bharat (wk), Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Sachin Baby, Wanindu Hasaranga, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
CSK too are likely to field the same playing XI that turned out against MI
CSK Predicted XI: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Josh Hazlewood
Top Fantasy picks for RCB vs CSK clash: AB de Villiers, Kyle Jamieson, Glenn Maxwell, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Moeen Ali, Shardul Thakur
--Renin Wilben Albert