Going into Tuesday’s match, the Gujarat Lions and the Royal Challengers Bangalore find themselves at the bottom of the Indian Premier League [IPL] table and both teams will be desperate for a win.
With just one win from five matches each, the Lions and the Royal Challengers will know that a loss here will make it very difficult for them to stay in contention for a playoff spot.
Ahead of the match, we have the latest team news, time and date, as well as how you can watch all the action from the UAE.
DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO
Date: April 18, 2017 (Tuesday)
Time: 18:30 GST, 20:00 local time (IST), 14:30 GMT
Venue: Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot
WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO
TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Sony Six, Sony Six HD (English), Sony Max, Sony Max HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports
Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)
LIVE: Sport360.com
TEAM NEWS, SQUADS, PREDICTED XIs
Just to clear things up, I didn't play the game today because my kit bag never arrived in Mumbai from our last match.
— Aaron Finch (@AaronFinch5) April 16, 2017
GL SQUAD: Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, James Faulkner, Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Dwayne Smith, Dinesh Karthik, Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar, Andrew Tye, Ishan Kishan, Pradeep Sangwan, Shivil Kaushik, Shadab Jakati, Jaydev Shah, Nathu Singh, Basil Thampi, Tejas Singh Baroka, Manpreet Gony, Jason Roy, Munaf Patel, Chirag Suri, Shelly Shaurya, Shubham Agrawal, Pratham Singh, Aksh Deep Nath
Aaron Finch missed the match against the Mumbai Indians after his kitbag did not reach Mumbai and you would expect him to come back into the side in place of Jason Roy.
The bowling line-up is likely to be the same, but the Gujarat think-tank might be tempted to play an extra spinner.
PREDICTED GL XI: Smith, McCullum, Raina (c), Karthik, Finch, Kishan, Jadeja, Praveen, Tye, Thampi, Munaf
A couple of weeks before the #IPL, I thought this was #RCB's best chance to win it. Who could have imagined so many things would change!
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) April 16, 2017
RCB SQUAD: Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Sreenath Aravind, Kedar Jadhav, Stuart Binny, Samuel Badree, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Iqbal Abdullah, Avesh Khan, Tabraiz Shamsi, Pawan Negi, Tymal Mills, Aniket Choudhary, Praveen Dubey, Billy Stanlake, Vishnu Vinod
One of the biggest problems for the Bengaluru-based franchise this season has been their inability to get the team combination right. The lack of contributions from experienced players such as Chris Gayle and Shane Watson hasn’t helped either.
Gayle was dropped in favour of Watson for the game against Rising Pune Supergiant on Sunday, but the West Indian opening batsman could possibly make a comeback on Tuesday.
The latest news is that AB de Villiers is ruled out of the game due to an injury and that is a massive blow for the visitors.
PREDICTED RCB XI: Kohli (c), Gayle, Mandeep, Jadhav (wk), Watson, Binny, Negi, Milne, Badree, Aravind, Chahal.
FORM
(Last five matches – with latest match first)
GL: L W L L L
RCB: L L L W L
MATCH PREDICTION
The pitch at Rajkot is likely to favour the batsmen and as a result, we are predicting a win for the Royal Challengers. Having said that, a lot will depend on the toss.
