Preview: Gujarat Lions vs Royal Challengers Bangalore

April 18 (CRICKETNMORE) - The two bottom ranked teams in IPL 2017 so far  - Gujarat Lions and Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on each other at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot today i:e Tuesday. 

Current Status in Points Table

Gujarat Lions and Royal Challengers Bangalore have won one match each in this season of IPL so far and are at No.7 and 8 respectively in the points table. The Lions have one win from four matches, while RCB have a single win from five matches played so far.

Gujarat Lions

Inspite of some good batting show, the bowlers were not able to defend the target and this is an area of concern for the team management. It will be Suresh Raina's 250th T20 match. Among Indian cricketers, only MS Dhoni has played more – 253 T20 matches.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

The team has strongest batting line-up on the paper but its magic yet to reflect in this season. With the likes of Virat Kohli, AB deVilliers, Chris Gayle, Kedar Jadhav, it's difficult to belive that team is struglling in batting department.

It would be interesting to see whether team will play Chris Gayle or Shane Watson in todays match.

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Bhuvneshwar Kumar joins elite club

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Head to Head

Overall: Matches played – 3, Gujarat Lions Won – 1, Royal Challengers Bangalore Won – 2

Expected Playing XI 

Gujarat Lions 

Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Suresh Raina (capt), Aaron Finch/Jason Roy, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Ishan Kishan, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar/Dhawal Kulkarni, Basil Thampi, AJ Tye, Munaf Patel/Shadab Jakati

Royal Challengers Bangalore 

Chris Gayle/Shane Watson, Virat Kohli (capt), AB de Villiers, Mandeep Singh, Kedar Jadhav (wk), Vishnu Vinod (wk)/ Stuart Binny, Pawan Negi, Adam Milne/Billy Stanlake/Tymal Mills, Samuel Badree, S Aravind, Yuzvendra Chahal

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Sahir