By Jamie Alter
RCB have had in upswing in their fortunes, winning their last two games after a falling into a rut. Chris Gayle’s arrival launched the team’s comeback, and they will hope to get as much out of Gayle as possible before Tillakaratne Dilshan departs for England.
Published: Apr 28, 2011, 08:37 PM (IST)
Edited: Apr 28, 2011, 08:37 PM (IST)
Chris Gayle will be the key player for the Royal Challengers Bangalore against Pune Warriors
By Jamie Alter
Bengaluru: Apr 28, 2011
Royal Challengers Bangalore seem to be getting their campaign back on track, while Pune Warriors continue to plummet new levels of mediocrity after a good start to IPL 2011. From lurking in the bottom half, RCB have surged to third place in the league table while PW have dropped to second last. The two teams meet at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in contrasting form, and as the battle for a spot in the final four heats up it is PW who are looking decidedly shabby.
The richest IPL team is in a bit of a funk, having lost three straight matches. In each, it has been their batting that has sorely disappointed, with the team struggling crossing 118 once. Jesse Ryder’s dip in form has meant that PW have struggled to launch the innings and with Robin Uthappa not living up to his billing, the team hasn’t had that desired knockout punch.
RCB have had in upswing in their fortunes, winning their last two games after a falling into a rut. Chris Gayle’s arrival launched the team’s comeback, and they will hope to get as much out of Gayle as possible before Tillakaratne Dilshan departs for England, after which the former West Indies captain will be left without a bombastic batsman at the other end.
The major worry for RCB is the middle order. They need far more adaptability from Saurabh Tiwary, who has struggled to cope with batting lower down the order than he did last season, and a more fluent run from AB de Villiers. Cheteshwar Pujara remains something of an oddity in Twenty20 cricket, while RCB’s lower order lacks punch.
Now that the IPL has entered its second half, securing points has become a tighter proposition and there’s a far lesser margin for error. In Bangalore, where the home support is known to be vociferous, PW will have to play extraordinary cricket to beat a resurgent RCB.
Teams:
RCB (Probable): Chris Gayle, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers (wk), Saurabh Tiwary, Cheteshwar Pujara, Asad Pathan, Daniel Vettori (c), Zaheer Khan, Sreenath Aravind, J Syed Mohammad.
PWI (Probable): Jesse Ryder, Tim Paine (wk), Manish Pandey, Yuvraj Singh (c), Robin Uthappa, Mohnish Mishra, Wayne Parnell, Murali Kartik, Rahul Sharma, Alfonso Thomas, Shreekant Wagh.
Time: 20.00 local (14.30 GMT)
(Jamie Alter is a freelance cricket writer, having worked at ESPNcricinfo and All Sports Magazine. He is the author of two books, The History of World Cup Cricket and Field of Dreams: The Story of the Dr. DY Patil Sports Stadium. His twitter feed is @jamie_alter)
Pictures © AFP
