The problem for Bangalore Royal Challengers this IPL season is that their best batsman has been Rahul ‘The Tank’ Dravid, with 144 runs at an average of 36, but he’s begun most of his innings with Bangalore already in deep trouble. Their top order that has failed to make use of the Powerplay overs by losing too many wickets. Their best performance during the first six overs was 49 for 3 against Kings XI Punjab on Friday. They were facing the same problem in the inaugural season of IPL.

Delhi’s last match against Chennai provided a test for its middle order and Dilshan and de Villiers passed with flying colours. Delhi would be pleased that they don’t have to rely too heavily on Sehwag and Gambhir for big scores. Bowling on the other hand remains a concern for them, I expect McGrath or Mahroof to come in in place of Nannes, who bowls at good speeds but has failed to impress so far.

Teams (probable)

Delhi: 1 Gautam Gambhir, 2 Virender Sehwag (capt), 3 AB de Villiers, 4 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 5 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 6 Manoj Tiwary, 7 Daniel Vettori, 8 Dirk Nannes/Farveez Maharoof/Glenn McGrath, 9 Aavishkar Salvi, 10 Pradeep Sangwan, 11 Ashish Nehra.

Bangalore: 1 Robin Uthappa (wk), 2 Jesse Ryder, 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 Kevin Pietersen (capt), 5 Rahul Dravid, 6 Ross Taylor/Cameron White/Mark Boucher, 7 Virat Kohli, 8 Praveen Kumar, 9 R Vinay Kumar, 10 Pankaj Singh, 11 Anil Kumble. 

Timings

Start time : 12:30 local, 10:30 GMT, 16:00 IST