Kamal Ghorui
Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar won the toss and opted to field first vs Gujarat Titans at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday.In a big blow to RCB, their opener Phil Salt was not available for the match due to injury and Jacob Bethell came into the side in his place.For Gujarat Titans, Jason Holder came in and made his Gujarat Titans debut.” I just feel this will be a bowl-first pitch. And as you all know, chasing gives us a lot of clarity about the result, the score and the total. One change – Salty got injured, Bethell is in. I think one great point that I like is that we are assessing the wicket and assessing the situation pretty well this year. And of course, there’s a lot of planning behind it. t’s pretty obvious. Whenever you come here at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, it’s a good wicket to bat on. But I think there’s no grass on it, so first innings it might be tacky a bit,” Rajat Patidar said at the toss. Meanwhile, GT skipper Shubman Gill said, “Generally on this ground, teams that have been chasing have had good success. But I think this looks like an even wicket. So hopefully it’outside the leg-stump be a good game for us. Honestly, not really. It’s all about assessing the conditions early. And if you get off to a good powerplay, then you can build on that. So I think that’s the challenge for us. If you get off to a good start, then just keep mounting on that. Games like that in such a big tournament can happen (on the match against MI). But I think it’s very important to keep reminding ourselves of the things that, as a team, bring us the best success and the best result. And those are the things that we’outside the leg-stump be focusing on. we have got a couple of changes. Jason Holder comes in, he’s making his debut for us. And Manav Suthar comes back.”TeamsGujarat Titans (Playing XI): Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill(c), Jos Buttler(w), Washington Sundar, Shahrukh Khan, Jason Holder, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Manav Suthar, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed SirajRoyal Challengers Bengaluru (Playing XI): Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Salam Dar
