Bangalore set to stroll past pre-eliminated Sunrisers Hyderabad
Royal Challengers Bangalore will come up against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday night for the 52nd Indian Premier League 2021 game.
Expected playing XI
RCB
Virat Kohli (C), Devdutt Padikkal, AB de Villiers (WK), Glenn Maxwell, Daniel Christian, Srikar Bharat, Washington Sundar, Harshal Patel, Shahbaz Ahmed, Mohammed Siraj and George Garton.
SRH
Jason Roy, Kane Williamson (C), Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Abdul Samad, Priyam Garg, Rashid Khan, Jason Holder, Sidharth Kaul, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik and Abhishek Sharma.
Best probable performers
Glenn Maxwell
The Australian all-rounder has been making his bat talk for a while now. He has already scored five fifties in the IPL 2021, bagging Man of the Match award a number of times as well.
He has scored three 50+ scores in a row. Maxwell has been a great addition in the middle and death overs, where he smokes bowlers for boundaries regardless of the opposition.
On the UAE tracks that support spin bowling, he has also rolled his arm quite a few times and provided the team with vital breakthroughs. He has been performing head and shoulders above any RCB batter this season.
Harshal Patel
Being the leading wicket-taker in the league has its perks and Harshal Patel has been thoroughly enjoying them. The RCB pacer has been instrumental in Bangalore’s success this season. He has been uprooting stumps for fun in the middle and late overs which bars the opposition from piling up big scores.
Skipper Kohli has been confiding in him in crunch situations, and Patel has a knack for making his captain proud too.
Match prediction
Virat Kohli and co have already qualified for the playoffs. This is the last time Kohli is leading Bangalore in IPL. The team hasn’t yet won an IPL trophy.
However, things look promising for Bangalore this year. Their bowlers have stepped up to occasion more often and their batting line-up is stronger than ever, especially after Glenn Maxwell joined the huddle this year from Punjab Kings.
They are coming off a victory against PBKS.
On the flip side, Sunrisers Hyderabad are having their worst season ever. They have lost nine of 12 games and have been at the bottom of the points table for quite a while now. Kane Williamson and co were the first team to knock themselves out of the playoffs contention.
Things have only gone worse for Hyderabad since replacing David Warner as the skipper. Jason Roy played a match-winning knock after opening in place of former skipper Warner, but he couldn’t carry the same form onto the next games.
They lack firepower at the back as Abdul Samad hasn’t got going either. Bowlers haven’t supported the cause either and the team hasn’t been able to use Rashid Khan very well.
It seems highly unlikely to Williamson’s men to defeat in-form RCB on Wednesday. Hence, Bangalore should grab an easy win to continue with their goal of grabbing the first or second spot in the points table.
