Royal Challengers Bangalore v Chennai Super Kings – Player Comparison – Part One
Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on Chennai Super Kings in their last league match of the fourth Indian Premier League (IPL), today at Bangalore.
Both these teams have done exceedingly well this year and are leading the points table. The two have already qualified for the play-off stage of the tournament as well.
However, the two teams will be looking for a psychological advantage before the next round of the tournament.
On paper, Super Kings and Royal Challengers are evenly balanced and we can expect a tough game tomorrow.
The Super Kings are also the defending champions of IPL and have definitely been the best team of the last three seasons. The biggest plus point for Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men is the fact that they are playing together as a unit since last four years
and know each other quite well, whereas all the other franchises have made drastic changes to their squads.
If we look at the batting lineup of the two teams, the Royal Challengers have a slight edge because of their recent form. Chris Gayle joined them late in the season but he has changed their fortunes. He has been absolutely awesome this year, striking a couple
of devastating hundreds this year.
It is something special considering the fact that many good batsmen fail to score a hundred in the shortest format of the game in the whole of their careers, whereas Gayle achieved this milestone twice in the same tournament. The explosive left hander could
turn out to be the difference between the two teams today.
It is not just Gayle for the Royal Challengers, but the likes of Virat Kohli, Tillakaratne Dilshan and AB de Villiers have also played their part. Although Dilshan has flown to England to join his national team but Bangalore’s batting still looks a formidable
unit.
De Villiers has not had enough opportunities to shine since the arrival of Gayle and one expects him to showcase his class in the crunch time of IPL.
On the other side of the coin, Chennai also have some explosive batsmen in their lineup. Michael Hussey, Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni, Dwayne Bravo and Subramaniam Badrinath are match-winners in their own rights and all of them possess the ability
to change the course of a game.
It’s the ‘Gayle factor’ which gives a slight advantage to Bangalore in the batting department but the Royal Challengers should be wary of the fact that a single individual cannot win them matches all the time.
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