Steve Smith and Virat Kohli
In the first afternoon game of IPL 2020, Rajasthan Royals captain Steve Smith opted to bat first against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Rajasthan made only one change as against an unchanged RCB.
"We'll bat first. It's a day game, pretty warm out here, so we want to bat first and set a target. We got one change, Lomror comes in for Ankit (Rajpoot). It's a long tournament, you are going to win games, lose games. Hopefully, we'll put on a good show today. Ben (Stokes) is a quality player, adds to our squad once he's arrives," said Smith after the toss.
Kohli is unfazed over the fate of the toss.
"It's dry heat, but it's not so bad. We are playing with the same XI. We wanted to bat first as it's a day game, better to get into the game in the first six overs of the match. Getting a strong squad together, it's good to see the youngsters doing the job for us, that's what we have focused on. Dube contribution, Chahal's always a banker and AB does what he is good at doing," said the RCB captain.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Devdutt Padikkal, Aaron Finch, Virat Kohli(c), AB de Villiers(w), Shivam Dube, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Washington Sundar, Isuru Udana, Navdeep Saini, Adam Zampa, Yuzvendra Chahal
Rajasthan Royals (Playing XI): Jos Buttler(w), Steven Smith(c), Sanju Samson, Robin Uthappa, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Tom Curran, Shreyas Gopal, Jofra Archer, Jaydev Unadkat
Rajasthan won both their first two matches, at the high-scoring Sharjah, but got their plans wrong during the Kolkata Knight Riders clash in Dubai this week. The ground in Abu Dhabi is going to be no different from Dubai and hence Rajasthan will have to come all preppared to gain their third win this season and steer ahead to grab the top spot in the points table.
Royal Challengers Bangalore made a promising start to the season with a 10-run win against Sunrisers Hyderabad. But grappled by familiar issues - the death-over bowling to be precise - RCB lost their second and almost third third before surviving in a Super Over duel.
