Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) opener Devdutt Padikkal is likely to be seen in action against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Wednesday (April 14), confirmed Mike Hesson, RCB’s director of cricket.
Days before the start of IPL 2021, Padikkal had returned COVID-19 positive and he was serving home quarantine. After being tested negative for the virus three times, the southpaw joined RCB's team bubble in Chennai.
"Devdutt Padikkal has come back nicely, he would be fully fit so he will be considered for the game against SunRisers, and most likely, he would play. Finn Allen has come out of quarantine and looks in great touch, we would have Zampa and Richardson back heading into the next game as well, they will get out the day of the game," Hesson said in a video uploaded on the official Twitter handle of RCB.
Padikkal was one of the star performers for RCB during the last year’s IPL in UAE. He had outscored both Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers to end as the highest run-getter for the franchise, amassing 473 runs from 15 games at a strike rate of 124.80 with 5 half-centuries.
RCB started their IPL 2021 campaign on a positive note as they registered a nervy two-wicket victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) last Friday (April 9).
Opting to bowl first, the Bangalore-based franchise restricted the defending champions to 159 in their allotted 20 overs on the back of Harshal Patel’s five-wicket haul (5-27).
In the chase, RCB rode on AB de Villiers’ brisk 48 off 27 balls to overhaul the target on the last delivery.
"Look, we are very happy with the start we had, I think we deserved to win the game against Mumbai Indians. We did a lot of hard work, I guess the only thing is we would have wanted to finish the game off against Mumbai two or three wickets down, it was a great partnership between Virat and Maxwell. When we look back at the game, we have got few little areas to improve upon and that is great. We did a lot of things really well, obviously with the ball and with a partnership in the middle," said head coach Simon Katich in the video.
"It was an interesting wicket, the first one. It certainly wasn't that easy to bat on. The quality of the bowling was really good, it will all depend on the pace of the wicket. It certainly was on the slower side and difficult to score," he added.
