Rajasthan Royals and Royals Challengers Bangalore at 4 pm in Jaipur will engage in a direct shootout of a contest. Both teams are playing their last league game of the season and a win for both teams will bolster their chances for the playoffs. A loss, however, will eliminate them out of the tournament.
Rajasthan will go into this match without the likes of Jos Buttler who has been the highest run-getter for their team. He very much has been the batting mainstay and has held the batting line-up together.
Ben Stokes will too miss out the contest. He did not perform as per his caliber in this season. However, his presence in a must-win match would have given confidence to the side.
Bangalore, on the other hand, will be confident after their victory against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Their bowling attack clicked at the right time to stop the SRH batsmen from overhauling their score. In today's game they would like to repeat their performance and if they do it, RCB will be the winners off the match hands down.
The Jaipur crowd will be supporting their team in full flow expecting them to topple RCB and get through to the playoffs.
As far as team changes for both teams are concerned for this game, Heinrich Klaasen and D'Arcy Short will be the two overseas players replacing Buttler and Stokes. Apart from that, no other changes can be expected.
RCB, on the other hand, might just stick with the same playing XI who have been winning them the last few matches. With Virat and De Villiers in good form with the bat, the duo will be expected to steer their team through with the bat with Southee and co do their job with the ball.
So the equation for this game is pretty simple. Lose and you are out, win and you prevail.
Toss: Rajasthan Royals have won the toss and have opted to bat
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Parthiv Patel(w), Virat Kohli(c), AB de Villiers, Moeen Ali, Colin de Grandhomme, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
Rajasthan Royals: Rahul Tripathi, Ajinkya Rahane, Sanju Samson, Heinrich Klaasen, Stuart Binny, Krishnappa Gowtham, Jofra Archer, Sheryas Gopal, Ish Sodhi, Jaydev Unadkat, Ben Laughlin
