IPL 2019: 5 players who can open the innings for RCB

The Royal Challengers Bangalore will begin their 2019 IPL campaign with the match against Chennai Super Kings on 23rd March. RCB, for some reason or the other, has been an underachiever in the IPL.

Despite having a bunch of superstars of T20 cricket in their side, the team has never been able to live up to expectations. Last year was the same as the Kohli's men performed poorly in all departments and failed to reach the playoffs. Owing to this poor performance, the Bangalore team released a lot of players before the auction.

The team is looking for a fresh start and bought some fresh faces at the auction too. Major changes have been made in the batting department with Virat Kohli and Ab de Villiers being the only batsmen in the team from last year.

However, in the process of a complete overhaul in the batting department, the team management seems to have forgotten to pick established openers in the team. Devdutt Padikkal and Parthiv Patel are the only players who are specialised openers and none of those players is sure of a place in the playing XI.

In the absence of an established opener, here are 5 players who can open the innings for RCB:

#5 Moeen Ali

Moeen Ali made his IPL debut in 2018. The England all-rounder played 5 matches as he took 3 wickets and scored 77 runs. Moeen batted in the middle order and lower middle-order in the matches he played in IPL 2018.

However, he has previously opened the innings for England in ODI and T20 cricket. The 31-year-old is a good player of spin and has an aggressive style of batting and hence Kohli might be tempted to send him to open the innings.

Also, Ali being a left-handed batsman might provide a left hand-right hand combination right at the top for RCB.