Royal Challengers Bangalore once again failed their fans by losing back to back games in the 16th season of the Indian Premier League. They have been consistently poor with the bat and ball unable to defend and chase as well. Fans are relying on captain Faf Du Plessis to have a great season to finally win their maiden title of the Indian Premier League.
Virat Kohli will captain Royal Challengers Bangalore in their IPL 2023 encounter against Punjab Kings in Mohali on Thursday, in a new but not unprecedented move.It was a welcome sight for the fans when Kohli showed up to lead the RCB at the toss two years after stepping down as captain.
There were concerns for Shikhar Dhawan too who did not make the playing XI due to a niggle as his absence was confirmed when Sam Curran flipped the coin while his counterpart Virat Kohli was called up to lead RCB in absence of Faf du Plessis even before the game began.
“Faf potentially can’t be fielding today, so he’ll be playing as an impact player, switching with Vyshak. We got to do what we wanted, we would have batted first, the pitch could get slow, some scuff marks will help the bowlers going deep into the game. Taking one game at a time, focusing on our own game, and making the most of crunch situations, we haven’t done that so far in the tournament. No other changes for us,” said Kohli during the toss.
The reason why Virat Kohli is the captain for RCB against PBKS:
Virat Kohli is the captain for RCB against PBKS because Du Plessis has rib problems which he suffered during the previous game against Chennai Super Kings and continued to bat with the area wrapped up. Du Plessis will start for the RCB when they bat first because it is thought that he hasn’t fully recovered from his injury as disclosed by Kohli and he will later be replaced by an impact player.
A similar tactic was seen recently in the MI vs. KKR match when Suryakumar Yadav captained Mumbai Indians and Rohit Sharma later came to bat in the second innings as their Impact Player.
These are the line-ups for both sides:
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Virat Kohli(c), Faf du Plessis, Shahbaz Ahmed, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik(wk), Wanindu Hasaranga, Suyash Prabhudessai, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Wayne Parnell.
Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Matthew Short, Atharva Taide, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran(c), Shahrukh Khan, Jitesh Sharma(wk), Harpreet Brar, Nathan Ellis, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh.
PBKS impact substitutes – Prabhsimran Singh, Mohit Rathee, Sikandar Raza, Shivam Singh, Rishi Dhawan.
RCB impact substitutes – David Willey, Akash Deep, Karm Sharma, Anuj Rawa, Vyshak Vijaykumar, .
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