IPL-7 Preview: Bangalore vs Rajasthan

Indian Premier League 2014 seeping up and heading towards a close of the first round of the tournament, Today  is the match between Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore in Abu Dhabi. Both teams have had demoralizing defeats recently and this encounter will examine their mental strength to get back their morale and reach at the finish line more than their firepower.

Both Rajasthan and Bangalore made the marvelous starts in the tournament. Despite being in good situations, Rajasthan failed to gain advantage in their games and defeated while Bangalore got down to the wire defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders by two runs despite being in the drivers’ seat for almost the entire match.

It was Ajinkya Rahane and Stuart Binny who helped Rajasthan to get a victory in their first match, Watson and Sanju Samson were very efficient in the next match with two half-centuries to put up a good score against Punjab but their bowlers could not defend the total. But in their last match, Rajasthan`s batting shattered against a disciplined CSK attack.

On the other hand, Royal Challengers have been rock solid in their batting. While Yuvraj Singh and Virat Kohli chased down Delhi`s target with more than three overs to spare in the first match, it was Parthiv Patel and AB de Villiers who did the job against Mumbai when Yuvraj and Virat failed.

Bangalore was on a high with two successive wins before Kolkata snatched a two-run unlikely victory to leave Virat Kohli and company stunned.

Squads-
Rajasthan Royals: Shane Watson (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Brad Hodge, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny, Ankush Bains, James Faulkner, Pravin Tambe, Kevon Cooper, Unmukt Chand, Steven Smith, Ben Cutting, Deepak Hooda, Iqbal Abdullah, Karun Nair, Vikramjeet Malik, Abhishek Nayar, Dhawal Kulkarni, Kane Richardson, Dishant Yagnik (wk), Tim Southee, Rahul Tewatia, Ankit Sharma, Amit Mishra.
 
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (c), Chris Gayle, Parthiv Patel (wk), Yuvraj Singh, AB de Villiers, Albie Morkel, Muttiah Muralitharan, Mitchell Starc, Ravi Rampaul, Vijay Zol, Sachin Rana, Yogesh Takawale, Nic Maddinson, Sandeep Warrier, Tanmay Mishra, Harshal Patel, Shadab Jakati, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Ashok Dinda, Varun Aaron, Yuzvendra Chahal.

Cricketnmore/ Lal Prateek Vikram Singh