Mumbai Indians travel away to the Chinnaswamy Stadium to meet Royal Challengers Bangalore and it promises to be a marquee clash. Virat Kohli will finally return to the Indian Premier League, having recovered from his shoulder injury sustained during the Australia series. Against Punjab in their last match, AB de Villiers already demonstrated his superhuman ability and with Chris Gayle also likely to slot back in, Bangalore will be at full strength to take on a Mumbai Indians side which is running high on confidence after two buoyant wins.

Time: 4 pm

Advertisement

Venue: Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru

TV: Sony Max, Sony Six, Sony ESPN and their HD channels

Results in 2016:

Played: 2

RCB won: 0

Mumbai won: 2

Royal Challengers Bangalore

  • Virat Kohli is back and that’s great news for RCB. The Indian skipper rocked the IPL last year, scoring four centuries in a scarcely believable season. His return, coupled with AB de Villiers’s brilliance, will bring the fear factor back into the Bangalore batting line-up.
  • Chris Gayle, dropped from the last RCB match, should be back to play Mumbai after Kohli dropped a strong indication that he would be playing.
  • Bangalore have a bad record in their home ground against Mumbai. They have won just one out of seven match against Rohit Sharma’s team.

“Bangalore has generally been a ground where you can chase down high totals”

Virat Kohli, Royal Challengers Bangalore captain

Squad: Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Kedar Jadhav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Samuel Badree, Iqbal Abdulla, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Avesh Khan, Tabraiz Shamsi, Pawan Negi, Tymal Mills, Aniket Choudhary, Praveen Dubey, Billy Stanlake, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Sarfaraz Khan, S Aravind.

Mumbai Indians

  • Despite Kohli’s brilliant form last year, Mumbai Indians were the only team against whom he did not score a half-century. 
  • Rohit Sharma has got three single-figure scores in the tournament so far.
  • Lasith Malinga will have a job on his hands. He enjoys the upper hand against Chris Gayle with the big West Indian only scoring at a strike rate of 73.43 against him. But AB de Villiers likes facing him, as a strike rate of 169.04 indicates. 

Squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh, Ambati Rayudu, Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Gopal, Lendl Simmons, Vinay Kumar, Parthiv Patel, Mitchell McClenaghan, Nitish Rana, Siddhesh Lad, Jagadeesha Suchith, Hardik Pandya, Jos Buttler, Tim Southee, Jitesh Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Deepak Punia, Saurabh Tiwary, Nicholas Pooran, Mitchell Johnson, Karn Sharma, Asela Gunaratne, Krishnappa Gowtham, Kulwant Khejroliya.