IPL 6: RCB aim for revenge against Hyderabad

Bangalore: Jolted by a narrow loss, Royal Challengers Bangalore would aim for revenge when they take on table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League here today. RCB lost to Hyderabad in the Super Over at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium last night and avenging the close defeat would be on the RCB players’ minds when they take to the field on home turf. A win today would give RCB some much-needed confidence when they face defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders, who had comfortably defeated Delhi Daredevils by six wickets in the opening encounter of this year’s IPL.[caption id=“attachment_691889” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Chris Gayle.[/caption] Hyderabad, on the other hand, would be keen to extend their winning run after consecutive victories lifted them to the top spot in the points table. Team Bangalore’s bowling has been their strength with Vinay Kumar making an impact in the absence of injured pace spearhead Zaheer Khan. RCB do not seem to be missing Zaheer as almost all their bowlers have done their bit. Muttiah Muralitharan, Jaydev Unadkat, Murali Karthik and Moises Henriques have picked up wickets at crucial stages of the matches. Batting, in contrast, has struggled as apart from the big-hitting Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli, the others have failed to deliver. Tillakaratne Dilshan and Mayank Agarwal have been the significant failures in the batting line-up. Their over-dependence on Gayle was evident in the last game against Hyderabad where they could muster up only 130 compared to 156 against Mumbai Indians when the West Indian stroked an unbeaten 92. Dilshan has scores of 0 and 5 against Mumbai Indians and Hyderabad, respectively. On the other hand, Hyderabad are on a high going into the match having tasted victories in their first two matches. They first defeated last year’s laggards Pune Warriors by 22 runs in a low-scoring match and then posted a nail-biting win over RCB in the Super Over last night on their home ground. The rechristened Hyderabad team, however, has batting worries as none of their top batsmen have fired which has reflected in the team scores (126 for six and 130 for seven). Their skipper Kumar Sangakkara has managed to score just 31 in two matches. Parthiv Patel and Cameron White, except for his fireworks in the Super Over against Bangalore, have also not exactly flourished. Thisara Perera put up a good show against Pune Warriors by scoring 30 vital runs, but in the next match he could gather just seven. Also the injuries to J P Duminy and Shikhar Dhawan, who hammered the fastest Test century on debut against Australia last month, have added to their batting worries. Hyderabad skipper Kumar Sangakkara was under attack for dropping himself low in order in the last game against RCB. Though Hyderabad’s batting has not fired so far, bowling is their strength as they successfully defended small totals against Pune Warriors and the formidable batting lineup of Bangalore. The star of the bowling attack is Dale Steyn, the number one Test bowler who has picked up four wickets so far. The South African bowled a magnificent Super Over to restrict Gayle and Kohli and take Hyderabad to victory last night. The lanky Ishant Sharma (3 wickets), Thisara Perera (3) and spinner Amit Mishra (4), who bagged the man-of-the-match award for his 3-19 spell against Pune, have been a good foil for the South African speedster. Teams (from): Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), Abhimanyu Mithun, Abhinav Mukund, Andrew McDonald, Chateshwar Pujara, Christopher Barnwell, Daniel Vettori, Harshal Patel, KP Appanna, Moises Henriques, Chris Gayle, Tilkaratne Dilshan, Mayank Agarwal, Daniel Christian, Karun Nair, Arun Karthik, J Unadkat, Vinay Kumar, Muttiah Muralitharan, Murali Kartik, Pankaj Singh and P Prasanth. Sunrisers Hyderabad: K Sangakkara (captain), Akshat Reddy, Ashish Reddy, Dale Steyn, Parthiv Patel, Cameron White, Hanuma Vihari, Thisara Perera, DB Ravi Teja, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Nathan McCullum, Ankit Sharma, Anand Rajan and Biplab Samantray, Chrisl Lynn, Darren Sammy, Karan Sharma, Prashant Padmanabhan, Quinton de Cock, Sachin Rana, Shikhar Dhawan, Sundeep Tyagi, T Sargunam, Veer Pratap Singh. PTI