IPL 2017 Fantasy Tips: Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Sunrisers Hyderabad

Kohli to captain the side!

Transfers made – 1; Transfers remaining – 34

Jos Buttler out – David Warner in 

(Uncapped) Krunal Pandya out – Siddarth Kaul in

Uncapped preference order: 1. Siddarth Kaul 2. Mohammed Siraj 3. Deepak Hooda 4. Bipul Sharma

Captain - Virat Kohli

David Warner, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli – choosing a captain when you have so many quality options is usually tricky, but what makes it even more difficult today is that none of them has been consistent enough to be banked on. I was thinking about going in with De Villiers, but if he is again demoted to No.4 as it happened in the last match against the Kolkata Knight Riders, I would be badly hit. 

As a result, it makes sense to play safe here and captain Kohli. I am keeping Chris Gayle out again; in addition to the threat that Bhuvneshwar Kumar usually poses with the new ball. the Sunrisers may be looking at bringing in an overseas pace bowler to counter the RCB top order, especially after the recent struggles with their bowling unit.

If Ashish Nehra, too, comes back, it would make Gayle’s job doubly challenging. 

Guru's team for RCB vs SRH

My overseas spots are locked, but if you have any left, both Tymal Mills and Samuel Badree are good enough options as they showed you against KKR. You should ideally have Yuzvendra Chahal in your team already, but it’s not too late to bring him in, with RCB featuring in 3 of the next 6 games. It is exactly for the same reason that Kedar Jadhav could turn out to be a decent differential as well.

As far as the Sunrisers are concerned, Warner, even when not at his best, is an obvious pick with the size of the boundaries at the Chinnaswamy. Yuvraj Singh is expected to come back into the team, which could result in Moises Henriques being pushed back to No.5 – and that rules him out.

I have had enough of Shikhar Dhawan, while Kane Williamson’s impact is totally dependent on how long the first wicket partnership lasts – a risk that is not worth taking when there are strict limitations on overseas players and the number of batsmen you can have in your team. 

If the RCB top order fails again, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Rashid Khan can run through the middle and lower order of the team in no time. But if it doesn’t, Kohli and De Villiers would nullify Rashid’s impact and considerably lessen Bhuvneshwar’s too.