🏏 IPL Match 49: Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Chennai Super Kings🏏

⭐️On athleticism, God knows no favor. It seems rather he is in the business of teaching winners how to lose, and losers how to win!!!⭐️👏

IPL Match 49: Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Chennai Super Kings

Match 49

Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on the defending champions Chennai Super Kings in a group stage match to be played at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) Stadium, Pune today. ⭐️⭐️

While the Red Army is coming in to the match after losing three games in a row, the Yellow Army under the leadership of MS Dhoni won their previous match against Sunrisers Hyderabad recently.

Both RCB and CSK have already faced each other in IPL 2022.

To note, the defending champions had beaten RCB by a convincing margin.

However, it will be a different day and RCB will want to settle the scores and make a strong comeback in the tournament. 👍🏼

Both teams look strong on paper and it will be an exciting contest between the two heavyweights of the long-running tournament.

With five wins and five losses, Royal Challengers Bangalore's 2022 IPL season has been a mirror image of some of their past seasons!! 😕

A typical such RCB season would be a mixture of some promises juxtaposed with a string of defeats.

RCB can still script a turnaround in their remaining four games and rubber-stamp their qualification for the playoffs.

But for that to happen, they need a turnaround in the fortunes of a few of their key personnel.

While the Red Army is coming to the match on the back of two back-to-back defeats, the Yellow Army won their previous match!!

The CSK camp found a glimmer of hope in their floundering campaign after beating one of the form teams of the tournament, Sunrisers Hyderabad.

It was also a match that saw MS Dhoni back to marshalling the resources as the franchise's captain. ⭐️⭐️

Probable Playing XIs for RCB vs CSK

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Faf du Plessis (c), Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Shahbaz Ahmed, Mahipal Lomror, Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Josh Hazlewood

Chennai Super Kings

Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Robin Uthappa, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Mitchell Santner/Dwayne Bravo, Dwaine Pretorius, Simarjeet Singh, Mukesh Choudhary, Maheesh Theekshana

The MCA stadium in Pune has offered some bounce through the course of the season. CSK and SRH combined to aggregate 391 runs in the last match played here. The humidity levels are expected to be on the lower side at 31 per cent. So there could be less dew.

Pitch Report

The Pitch at the MCA stadium has assisted both batters and bowlers so far. The past matches have witnessed some decent scores, but new ball bowlers have also impacted the match. The skipper winning the toss will want to field first and chase the target later on. As it is an evening game, the dew factor might come into play.

Hope rcb is more prepared today😆

Probable best batter of the Match

Faf du Plessis:

Former CSK opener and current RCB skipper Faf du Plessis will want to make a statement against his previous franchise by performing well against them with the bat. Du Plessis has played some crucial knocks for his team in a few matches, but he has not been in top form as yet. The right-handed batter will want to play a big knock for his team and get two crucial points on the table.

Probable best bowler of the Match

Mukesh Choudhary

Pacer Mukesh Choudhary was excellent in his previous outing against Sunrisers Hyderabad. The left-arm pacer scalped four crucial wickets for his side. However, he was quite expensive in that match giving away 46 runs in his four overs. Taking the new ball, the 25-year-old will want to clean up the RCB top order in the next match.

Today’s match prediction: Chasing team to win the match

Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel and Josh Hazlewood have been among the wickets. In their next game, RCB would be against a rejuvenated Chennai Super Kings side.

The CSK camp found a glimmer of hope in their floundering campaign after beating one of the form teams of the tournament, Sunrisers Hyderabad.

It was also a match that saw MS Dhoni back to marshalling the resources as the franchise's captain.

In their last game, Devon Conway and Ruturaj Gaikwad stitched a massive opening stand of 182. It also meant that CSK's tried and tested template of building a platform in the Powerplay with 'anchor-batters' and then pressing the accelerator worked to perfection.

It would be interesting to see how Gaikwad goes about constructing the innings at the top against RCB's Hazlewood. Gaikwad bases his game more on economy of movement and touch play while Hazlewood is known for extracting nifty movement and extra bounce.

Another plus point for CSK has been the form of left-arm pace bowler Mukesh Chowdhary. The left-armer has mixed up his short deliveries and also generated a hint of swing up front and now has 11 wickets to his name in the tournament.

Harshal Patel has found some success against the likes of MS Dhoni (dismissed him twice) and Ambati Rayudu (dismissed him five times) in the IPL.

Rayudu is renowned for his strong wrists, and with his bottom-handed grip also coming into play, he whips it consistently through the on-side.

However, by taking pace off, Harshal has dismissed the CSK lynchpin a few times, with the fielder stationed at short midwicket/midwicket grabbing the catches.

This kind of a tactic could prove to be useful on two-paced decks.

On another note, RCB have been the best bowling side in the middle overs in this IPL - 34 wickets at an average of 18.53.

So it could come down to whether CSK's 'anchor-batters' can again build a platform to negate RCB's threat in the middle overs.

CSK have generally deployed spinners to put a spanner in RCB's works.

The point can be further illustrated by the fact that CSK's spinners have accounted for 31 wickets at an average of 16 versus RCB since 2018.

Ravindra Jadeja could be the go-to man for CSK as he has accounted for the wickets of Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik and Virat Kohli 7, 3 and 3 times respectively in the IPL. Jadeja, though, hasn't been in good touch in this IPL, picking up only 5 wickets so far.

Tagging is a bit difficult for me today. It has taken too much time. 😕