The 13th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is getting interesting as all the teams have won at least one game and all teams have lost at least one game. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) will be up against each other in the 15th match of IPL 2020. Both the teams will be playing their fourth game of this season and up till now, they have a similar record.
RCB and RR are in a good position as they have won two out of their three games and lost only one. Over the last couple of years, RR has had an upper hand over RCB as they have won three out of the four games and one of them was washed out. RCB would like to give it back to them when these two teams meet at Abu Dhabi for the 15th match of IPL 13. This is the first afternoon game of this season and it would be interesting to see how both the teams approach this game.
Match Details
Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Rajasthan Royals, Match 15
03rd October, 03:30 PM IST.
Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Pitch and Weather Report
This is the first-afternoon game that will start in the scorching heat of Abu Dhabi. The temperature might be in the high 30s and low 40s which might dehydrate a few players.
The pitch at Abu Dhabi is slowing down a bit which means it is getting difficult for the batsmen. But this is an afternoon game and we haven’t seen how it will behave under the sun. Having said that, anything above 160 might be difficult to chase down.
Squads
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Virat Kohli (C), Aaron Finch, AB De Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Devdutt Padikkal, Josh Philippe, Shivam Dube, Moeen Ali, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Chris Morris, Isuru Udana, Dale Steyn, Yuzvendra Chahal, Adam Zampa, Washington Sundar, Adam Zampa, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pavan Deshpande
Rajasthan Royals
Steve Smith (C), Robin Uthappa, Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Manan Vohra, David Miller, Riyan Parag, Mahipal Lomror, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Mayank Markande, Jaydev Unadkat, Varun Aaron, Jofra Archer, Oshane Thomas, Tom Curran, Kartik Tyagi, Akash Singh, Andrew Tye, Ankit Rajpoot, Anuj Rawat, Shashank Singh, Aniruddha Joshi
Team News
Royal Challengers Bangalore
RCB came back strongly in their last game against Mumbai Indians after they had suffered a crushing defeat against Kings XI Punjab. RCB might have won their last game but there are still some areas where they can improve. Their death bowling apart from Navdeep Saini wasn’t that great and they need to sort it out.
Aaron Finch and Devdutt Padikkal were brilliant at the top and AB de Villiers in the middle-order is just sensational. Virat Kohli is the only batsmen from the RCB team who doesn’t seem to be in form but with his class, it is just a matter of time before he is at his best. AB de Villiers and Yuzvendra Chahal will be the key players for this game.
Rajasthan Royals
After two great wins in Sharjah, it seemed as if Rajasthan Royals just didn’t arrive in Dubai as they were completely outplayed against KKR. Jofra Archer was the only player who had a good game as all the others struggled.
It seemed as if their batsmen were still in Sharjah as they tried smashing the balls out of the park and kept losing wickets at regular intervals. The RR batsmen need to assess the conditions at Abu Dhabi as they haven’t played here before in this season.
Talking about the bowlers, Shreyas Gopal who was brilliant last year hasn’t been at his best so far in this season. He generally performs well against RCB as he has a hat-trick against them. Sanju Samson and Shreyas Gopal will be the key players against RCB.
Fantasy Prediction
Sanju Samson, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Steve Smith, Jos Buttler, AB De Villiers, Shivam Dube, Shreyas Gopal, Navdeep Saini, Jofra Archer, Yuzvendra Chahal
Captain: Virat Kohli, Vice-Captain: Shreyas Gopal
