IPL 2017 Fantasy Tips: Gujarat Lions vs Royal Challengers Bangalore
Transfers made – 3; Transfers remaining – 42
AB de Villiers out – Andrew Tye in
Manish Pandey out – Dinesh Karthik in
Rahul Tripathi out – Suresh Raina in
(uncapped) Deepak Hooda out – Basil Thampi in
Captain – Virat Kohli
You spend an hour trying to find a way to carry around AB de Villiers for his next match, and the next day you wake up only to hear that he has been ruled out with an injury. What’s worse? I couldn’t even consider Manan Vohra because of it, as you can only have five specialist batsmen in your team. Fantasy Gods can be cruel.
Extra Cover: IPL 2017: GL vs RCB, 5 factors of winning
Moving on, it will be interesting to see how the Royal Challengers Bangalore will be replacing him, and both Chris Gayle and Travis Head have valid claims for the spot. The team, in general, looks in very bad shape, and if at all they had any chance of making it to the playoffs, it was with Virat Kohli and De Villiers playing together in all the remaining matches. But the way things are going, it seems like the season is as good as done for them.
With the exception of Kohli, no one in the RCB side has done enough to merit a spot, especially when the team plays its next fixture only after 6 matches from today. Kedar Jadhav, Samuel Badree and Yuzvendra Chahal are the next best options if you still want to try your luck out.
Extra Cover: 5 players who could replace AB de Villiers in RCB's playing XI against Gujarat Lions
After this encounter, Gujarat Lions face Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab in their next couple of matches – all these three teams have a spin duo that’s been doing well. Therefore, I see getting better returns with Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik than Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum. If you can’t trust Badree, Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav and Sunil Narine to get the better of the Lions’ overseas players, you won’t be able to trust anyone. It is also easier to accommodate Indian players, with the restrictions on the overseas slots.
Andrew Tye looks to be in the zone when all he needs to do is rotate his arm over to get an easy couple of wickets, and at the price the Australian pacer comes, he is too tempting to be ignored. Bringing him in also lends tremendous balance to your team, both by budget and combination.