Agarwal’s males boast loads of strength-hitting skills, nevertheless will be without Bairstow for their season opener
Mountainous image
A range of IPL teams, for most of the time, accelerate into the auction to grasp help the gamers they’d been forced to let accelerate. And it makes for fun viewing as a result of their competitors repeatedly drive up the payment. Punjab Kings though did things a diminutive bit of otherwise.
They retained two, provided help 5 and stated #okbai to 17. Then, with cash to burn, they constructed a imprint contemporary team and it trusty bristles with strength-hitting skills. Their feeble captain overtly admitted he couldn’t play the manner he wished to as a result of he turned into once afraid about what would happen if he fell cheaply. Mayank Agarwal could now not hold this kind of considerations.
Royal Challengers Bangalore continuously is the vital team who will remove on the project of containing a line-up that has Shikhar Dhawan on the pinnacle, Liam Livingstone in the heart and Odean Smith on the stop.
Within the guidelines
Faf du Plessis is the person charged with leading the Royal Challengers transition and he can breathe pretty more uncomplicated, if most efficient for now, as a result of Jonny Bairstow and Kagiso Rabada could now not be among the opposition on Sunday on story of national tasks.
That doesn’t imply there will not be other components. Glenn Maxwell – one of RCB’s easiest gamers in 2021 – could now not be readily available for the vital two games and Josh Hazlewood, who lifted the title with Chennai Gargantuan Kings trusty a pair of months ago, will be arriving unhurried after a a hit tour of Pakistan.
Likely XIs
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Faf du Plessis (capt), 2 Anuj Rawat, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Sherfane Rutherford, 5 Mahipal Lomror, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 David Willey, 9 Harshal Patel, 10 Shahbaz Ahmed/Karn Sharma, 11 Mohammed Siraj
Punjab Kings: 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 Mayank Agarwal (capt), 3 Liam Livingstone, 4 Bhanuka Rajapaksa, 5 Shahrukh Khan, 6 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 7 Odean Smith, 8 Nathan Ellis/Harpreet Brar, 9 Sandeep Sharma, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Rahul Chahar
Approach punt
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David Willey is a powerplay skilled. His file – 81 wickets in 139 innings – suggests he nearly guarantees you an early wicket. And with Hazlewood out, he continuously is the excellent contemporary-ball bowler for RCB. Plus, given the DY Patil stadium basically assists tempo bowling, there is even a wide gamble that the England left-armer could operate one thing that is been very unlikely lately – swing the white cricket ball. - A range of teams could also resort to taking the tempo off to comprise the Royal Challengers line-up. Among 20-plus gamers to hold scored 100-plus runs against spin final season, Kohli had the lowest strike-payment (100 from 10 innings) and du Plessis had the third-lowest (108.08 in 12 innings). Dinesh Karthik’s average of 20 against spin turned into once the fourth lowest for a batter in IPL 2021 (min 10 innings). Punjab will be appealing to express this weak point, especially since they would maybe now not decide to panic about Maxwell throwing a spanner into the works.
Stats that matter
- The DY Patil stadium has hosted 17 IPL matches thus some distance. Ten of these were gained by the chasing team and you’ll know why if you happen to computer screen the average first-innings ranking: 147.
- Agarwal will be captaining a cricket team at senior stage for most efficient the fourth time in his profession. And while a lack of skills esteem that is generally a project to conquer, it must relief that the 31-yr historic now is aware of his sport interior out. Agarwal has modified into especially factual at pacing his innings and is an absolute risk in the heart overs (7-16) with a strike payment 158.68. Among these with now not lower than 50 runs on this duration since IPL 2019, most efficient four others fare better.
- du Plessis loves taking part in against Punjab. His average – 61 – and different of fifties – 7 – are each design increased (42 vs KKR and 3 vs RCB) than his recordsdata against any other IPL team.
- Sandeep Sharma has disregarded Kohli an IPL file seven cases.
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
