The breaks seemed to be too long for the Delhi Capitals as in 19 days of IPL 2025, they have played just three games while other teams have played five and they finish three days before every other side. But if that’s not a deterent for their performance, the Capitals will pray for more such breaks.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) managed to halt the Hardik Pandya train with some terrific defensive bowling at the end and win their third away game on the trot. While Rajat Patidar and Co have been fantastic on the road, their real Achilles Heel has been playing at home in the last couple of seasons in the IPL and they face the erstwhile table-toppers, the only unbeaten team of the tournament so far, Delhi Capitals, in a crunch encounter.
Who would have thought that after 23 matches, this fixture could have been a top-of-the-table clash? But such has been the quality of these two line-ups and how quickly they have figured out who their best 12-13 players are, who will play for most of the season barring tactical changes. Even if T Natarajan wasn’t fully 100 per cent, Delhi had Mohit Sharma as the backup or Sameer Rizvi when KL Rahul or Faf du Plessis didn’t play. The rest of the line-up takes care of itself. The only possible concern for the Capitals could be Jake Fraser-McGurk, who seemed to be on a broken record trying to muscle everything out of the ground, without gauging how the pitch is playing. But Chinnaswamy will give him value for his shots if he is ready to take it.
For RCB, they will be keen to turn around the Chinnaswamy hullabaloo. Gujarat Titans chased down 170 quite comfortably, which suggests that the toss will be vital on Thursday yet again. RCB have their bowling sorted and the batting really came to the fore at the Wankhede Stadium and more of the same would be the message from Andy Flower as it is building up to be a cracker of a context – a Delhi boy being a Bengaluru loyalist and a few of the RCB discards including a Bengaluru boy playing for the unbeaten Delhi team.
My Dream11 team for IPL 2025 Match 24, RCB vs DC
Jake Fraser-McGurk, Phil Salt, Rajat Patidar (c), KL Rahul, Abishek Porel, Tristan Stubbs, Krunal Pandya, Mitchell Starc (vc), Tim David, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood
Probable Playing XIIs
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, Liam Livingstone, Jitesh Sharma, Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal, Rasikh Salam/Suyash Sharma
Delhi Capitals: Faf du Plessis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel, KL Rahul (wk), Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Ashutosh Sharma, Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohit Sharma/T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar
