Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians: Preview and likely 11s

Tensions are going to be high as the Virat Kohli, the Indian captain, is pit against his deputy, Rohit Sharma in the limited overs format.

Yes, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) take on Mumbai Indians (MI) at Dubai in the 10th game of IPL 2020.

The points table shows that the two teams have a win and a loss each. While RCB won their first game against Hyderabad and then lost the second to Punjab, by as many as 97 runs, Mumbai bounced back nicely after a defeat at the hands of Chennai, defeating Kolkata Knight Riders convincingly in their second game of the season.

That however, in no way means that the teams are on equal footing. Rohit Sharma, the MI skipper, would be more certain of the two as there is no major hole in his squad that needs to be plugged. Jasprit Bumrah came back nicely after having a bad game at the start of the season. And the captain himself was amongst runs as he scored a brilliant 80 against KKR. The only thing he would be worried about would be Hardik Pandya’s unavailability to bowl. With Keiron Pollard bowling 3 decent overs in their last game, and plenty of other bowling options, he should walk in the game with his nerves settled.

Virat Kohli however, would have a lot playing on his mind. The bowling attack of RCB has not clicked at all. Umesh Yadav has been leaking runs, Dale Steyn has barely looked threatening to the batsmen and RCB bowlers have been costly both during the powerplay and at the death. Add to that the fact that Virat Kohli has not done well with the bat in the last couple of games. RCB’s batting line-up could not even cross KL Rahul’s individual score in the last game.

In the five balls he played in the last 2 overs, Joshua Phillipe has managed to score just one run. With Ab de Villiers practicing a lot of wicket-keeping in the nets, we might finally see Phillipe making way for Moeen Ali. With his all-round capabilities, Moeen provides some much-needed balance to the squad. Chris Morris is unlikely to recover before the start of the game. Virat would be tempted to make certain other changes in the bowling camp, but he will probably give his bowlers another game to find their groove.

Rohit’s Mumbai Indians are unlikely to make any changes to the XI, unless there is a last-minute injury concern.

Likely XI:

RCB: Devdutt Padikkal, Aaron Finch, Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Shivam Dube, Joshua Philippe/Moeen Ali, Dale Steyn, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Umesh Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal

MI: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Saurabh Tiwary, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Trent Boult, James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah