When these two South Indian teams go head to head at Bangalore, it presents arguably the biggest collection of superstars on the field in IPL matches. RCB with Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB De Villiers face off against the likes of Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni, Dwayne Smith. The crowd will have their money worth especially with a run feast expected as in the RCB’s previous home fixture against MI. RCB lost that day and with CSK also looking to get back to winning ways after their defeat against RR, a fiery contest is on the cards.
Virat Kohli will be glad to finally have Mitchell Starc back from injury. The leading wicket taker in the World Cup and the current No 1 ODI bowler, is sure to add some fire to the what has been an ordinary bowling attack. Gayle will look to bury the demons of the last game to give RCB a good start. Virat Kohli needs to convert the starts he is getting while De Villiers has to bat up the order to have some time in the middle before he can go kamikaze,David Wiese had a dream IPL debut against MI, picking up 4 wickets and a quickfire 40+ score and adds depth to the batting.
The CSK top order had a rare off day as their three match winning run came to an end against RR. But they will cherish the batting deck at Bangalore. They have some really big hitters and with short boundaries, runs are expected to flow. Dwayne Bravo adds so much balance to the CSK side with his death bowling and useful batting. The CSK bowling have struggled on the large, especially Ashwin who has bowled only three overs i the last two matches, Ravindra Jadeja has been woefully out of form, and if it continues, Irfan Pathan is sure to get a chance, pretty soon.
srikantkk 