Mohammed Siraj, one of the retained players of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, was benched for their game against the Gujarat Titans at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday.
GT captain Hardik Pandya won the toss and elected to bat first. The table-toppers brought in Kiwi pacer Lockie Ferguson for Alzarri Joseph.
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“We are going to bat. The kind of situation we are in, we thought we can practice batting first and putting a good score on the board. Obviously we had done well as a group, but we haven’t capitalized batting first on opportunities. One change, Lockie comes in place of Alzarri. We kind of asked all the boys if they wanted rest, but they are all pumped to play all the games. Everyone said let’s continue the rhythm. Looks like a similar wicket to the one we played against Chennai, but I expect this to play better as this is a night game. Always fun when you are winning as well. But overall as well captaincy is allowing me to express my point of view towards the game. It has helped me to become a better cricketer,” Hardik Pandya said at the toss.
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RCB skipper Faf du Plessis said that a must-win game like this ‘brings the challenge of what characters could do and we have got some great characters in that dressing room’.
“Hopefully we can have those guys stepping up.”
“We would have batted too. Looks a bit dry than it usually does in the evenings. Our previous game was pretty disappointing. One change to see if we can do a little bit better in the powerplay, so Sid Kaul comes in for Siraj. We have to win today and Delhi need to lose their game. The only thing we can control is get the W in the column today,” the RCB skipper said at the toss.
Teams:
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Siddarth Kaul, Josh Hazlewood
Gujarat Titans (Playing XI): Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill, Matthew Wade, Hardik Pandya(c), David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal, Mohammed Shami
