Battle Royale at Abu Dhabi: Royal Challengers Bangalore take on Rajasthan Royals

The confident-looking Royal Challengers Bangalore lock horns against Rajasthan Royals at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi. Having crossed the line in the pulsating encounter against Mumbai Indians, the Virat Kohli-led side will look to make winning a habit. On Wednesday, KKR put the brakes on Rajasthan Royals' juggernaut, comfortably sealing the win by 37 runs. They also exposed a few chinks in RR's armoury. Led by Smith, the batting department found it hard to come to terms with the sluggish track and bigger dimensions of the Dubai International Stadium. The over-reliance on the top order has been a matter of concern while the middle order sports a mediocre look with the absence of Ben Stokes and Robin Uthappa not in the best of nicks. 

Both teams have batsmen at the top, who can single-handedly win games for their respective teams. Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers will be wary of Shreyas Gopal's threat. The one area which RCB needs to calculatedly address is the ground fielding. The dropped chances in the last few games have allowed the teams to retaliate back into the game. Simon Katich, stressing on the significance of finishing the games off, advised the players to be ruthless in order to prohibit the opponents from staging a come from behind performance. 

Match Details 

Date: Saturday, 3 October

Venue: Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi

Time: 3:30 PM (IST) 

Players to watch out 

Virat Kohli

Despite not having fared well with the willow in the first three matches, one cannot afford to write the skipper off irrespective of his form as he is such an impactful player. The short stay at the crease in the Super Over would have done a world of good for him going into the fixture against the Royals on Saturday. 

AB de Villiers 

The Protea batsman has made batting look like a hot knife through butter, averaging 67 and striking at over 180. Those numbers adequately provide an explanation of the value he adds to the RCB batting unit. 

Sanju Samson 

Rajasthan Royals will be banking on the Kerala-born batsman to do the bulk of the scoring. Sanju Samson, with his muscular shots, has provided a good account of his big-hitting proficiencies, amassing 167 runs at an average of 55.67 in 3 matches. 

Shreyas Gopal 

Rajasthan Royals will expect the leg-spinner to get stuck into his favourite opponent, given his impressive track record. Shreyas has snared 12 wickets at a staggering bowling average of 5.17 in four matches against RCB. 

Head to Head 

Matches: 20

Rajasthan Royals: 10

Royal Challengers Bangalore - 8 

No Result - 2

Squads

RCB: Virat Kohli, Parthiv Patel, AB de Villiers, Chris Morris, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shivam Dube, Aaron Finch, Umesh Yadav, Adam Zampa, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Dale Steyn, Moeen Ali, Pawan Negi, Gurkeerat Mann Singh, Isuru Udana, Devdutt Padikkal, Shahbaz Ahmed, Joshua Philippe, Pavan Deshpande.

RR: Steven Smith, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ben Stokes, David Miller, Manan Vohra, Riyan Parag, Robin Uthappa, Shashank Singh, Mahipal Lomror, Shreyas Gopal, Tom Curran, Anuj Rawat, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, Akash Singh, Andrew Tye, Aniruddha Joshi, Ankit Rajpoot, Jaydev Unadkat, Jofra Archer, Kartik Tyagi, Mayank Markande, Oshane Thomas, Rahul Tewatia, Varun Aaron.