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Match Details

Date: 22nd April 2021

Time: 7:30 PM (IST)

Venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

Live Ball-by-Ball Commentary: SportsTiger App

Preview

The 16th match of the Indian Premier League 2021 will be played between Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. Bangalore have started the tournament dominantly and looked a formidable unit with the right mix of experience and youth in their squad.

Kohli’s men have been on fire this season with three straight wins while Royals are coming on the back off a heavy 45-run loss to CSK. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top in a high-voltage contest on Thursday.

Team News

Royal Challengers Bangalore:

Bangalore have a settled team at the moment with middle-order batsmen AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell in red-hot form in the batting department. It is hard to imagine Bangalore will make any changes to their winning combination. Though Aussie all-rounder Daniel Sams could come into the team in place of Rajat Patidar.

Rajasthan Royals

English all-rounder Liam Livingstone has flown back home, citing bio-bubble fatigue. Manan Vohra has not performed consistently and could be replaced with talented young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal. Meanwhile, Karnataka spinner Shreyas Gopal might also feature on a spin-friendly Chennai pitch.

Head to Head

Matches played: 23

Rajasthan Royals: 10

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 10

N/R: 3

Key Players

Sanju Samson

Sanju Samson is the top run-scorer for Rajasthan Royals with 124 runs in three matches at a strike rate of 174. However, majority of those runs came in the first match against Punjab, where he struck 12 fours and 7 sixes during his whirlwind knock. He was dismissed cheaply against Delhi and Chennai in the next two matches. Royals’ skipper will have added responsibility this season and the swashbuckling batsman needs to be at his best to fire his team to victory against RCB.

Virat Kohli:

Kohli has got decent starts in a couple of games but the talismanic skipper has not been able to play a big innings. The RCB skipper will be itching to play a big knock and help his team continue the winning momentum. This will be the perfect moment for Kohli to rise to the occasion and showcase his match-winning abilities with a good performance.

Glenn Maxwell

There are few more thrilling sights than Glenn Maxwell in full flow. The Aussie all-rounder looked a bit off-colour last season and didn’t make any noteworthy contribution with the bat. But this season has been completely different as Maxi has already overtaken his previous season’s run-tally. Maxwell has amassed 176 runs and smashed 8 maximums in just 3 matches.

Probable XI

Royal Challengers Bangalore:

Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (C), AB de Villiers (WK), Glenn Maxwell, Rajat Patidar/Daniel Sams, Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammad Siraj

Rajasthan Royals:

Jos Buttler, Manan Vohra, Sanju Samson (C & WK), Shivam Dube, David Miller, Riyan Parag, Chris Morris, Rahul Tewatia, Jaydev Unadkat/Shreyas Gopal, Chetan Sakariya, Mustafizur Rahman