For Royal Challengers Bangalore, their remaining games are literally knockouts. After their horrific loss against Kolkata Knight Riders wherein they were bowled out for 49 on Sunday, their next match against Sunrisers Hyderabad was washed out, leaving them with minimal chances of making the playoffs. They will have to win their six remaining matches to keep their playoff chances alive.

For Bangalore to win, their “Big Three” have to fire. Skipper Virat Kohli (154 from four matches), Chris Gayle (144 from five games) and AB de Villiers (145 from four games) have been inconsistent so far and need to get their act together against Gujarat Lions.

And Gujarat is the ideal team to face if they need to get back to winning ways. Gujarat, who lie at the bottom of the table with two wins in seven matches, have all to play for. The Suresh Raina-led side needs to win at least six of their remaining seven matches to stay in contention for a playoff spot. With Irfan Pathan drafted in to replace of Dwayne Bravo, it will be interesting to see if the 32-year-old gets his first game for the team.

Time: 8 pm

Venue: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru

TV: Sony Max, Sony Six, Sony ESPN and their HD channels

Head-to-head

Played: 4

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 3

Gujarat Lions: 1

Gujarat Lions

  • Brendom McCullum will be playing his 100th Indian Premier League match if he plays against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
  • Gujarat Lions skipper Suresh Raina has been dismissed 18 times by leg spinners, the most for a batsman in IPL history. He has got out to Bangalore’s Yuzvendra Chahal four times. 
  • Gujarat’s bowlers have taken the least wickets of all eight franchises: 31.
  • While batting, the Gujarat Lions’ scoring rate this season is 8.86.  However, their economy rate reads 9.70. 

Gujarat Lions squad: Suresh Raina (capt), Akshadeep Nath, Shubham Agarwal, Basil Thampi, Irfan Pathan, Chirag Suri, James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Manpreet Gony, Ishan Kishan, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhaval Kulkarni, Shivil Kaushik, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Praveen Kumar, Brandon McCullum, Munaf Patel, Pratham Singh, Jason Roy, Shadab Jakati, Pradeep Sangwan, Shelly Shaurya, Nathusingh, Dwayne Smith, Tejas Baroka and Andrew Tye.

“The bowlers are lacking confidence. They are not executing on match day, they do well in the nets, but not on match day. Couple of injury issues, but we have to win more games, we can’t just talk in training. We’ll go to Bangalore, regroup and hopefully we can win,” said Gujarat Lions skipper Suresh Raina.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

  • RCB’s openers Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli are just 43 runs short of becoming the first pair to put together 3000 runs together in Twenty20 cricket.  
  • Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli continue to battle each other as India’s top two run-getters in T20 cricket. Raina currently is in the lead with 6705 runs with Kohli close behind at 6667 runs.   
  • Gayle has scored only 69 off 70 balls in the Powerplay this season, with a 61.5% dot-ball percentage, the worst among all batsmen this season.

Royal Challengers Bangalore squad: Virat Kohli (capt), Tymal Mills, Aniket Chaudhary, Praveen Dubey, Billy Stanlake, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Vishnu Vinod, Sreenath Arvind, Kedar Jadhav (wk), Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Samuel Badree, Iqbal Abdulla, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Avesh Khan, Tabraiz Shamsi.

“We can definitely turn things around. We have a good bunch of players. We need to give our best for all six games and win,” said RCB fast bowler Sreenath Aravind.