Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Rising Pune Supergiant makes for a splendid battle especially when it concerns skippers of the recent India vs Aus series
Virat Kohli, Steve Smith
RCB's Virat Kohli celebrates Nitish Rana's wicket in Bangalore on Friday. Pic/PTI
Bangalore: Watch out for the toss tonight at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Not to see who wins it, not to note down what the winning captain decides to do, but just to see how Virat Kohli and Steven Smith get on.
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Not too long ago, Kohli, in his role as India captain, had all but called Smith, the Australian captain, a cheat. When the series was done with, he went on to "unfriend" Smith, who for his part, chose his last press conference in Dharamshala to apologise for his poor behaviour during the hard-fought series.
RPS skipper Steve Smith
But after an injury forced layoff, during which he got a lot of time to think things over, Kohli also took a step back the other day when he spoke to the media before the game against Mumbai Indians on Friday, saying that on hindsight he would have handled things better.
So when the two meet up at the toss we can perhaps expect a warm handshake and an indication of letting bygones be bygones but you never know.
Once the toss is done with the focus will shift to two other people, two of the greatest exponents of the T20 game, but both struggling to get going so far in this, the 10th edition of the IPL. One is a mere three runs away from taking his T20 run tally to 10,000 while the other has 5000 runs of his own to show. But tallies of 60 (three innings) and 33 (four innings) are not the contributions expected of Chris Gayle and MS Dhoni, respectively. The team managements would not be too worried at the moment but the fans, they are a different lot, and they cannot take this for much longer.
Besides poor form, the duo have some similarities when it comes to batting style. Neither go for cheeky shots, they are not given to carressing the ball and instead prefer to bludgeon it. The respective techniques will not be found in any textbook and cannot be copied too easily either.
Where they do differ is in running between the wickets. While with Gayle its all about ambling for singles and scoring in boundaries, Dhoni is one of the world's best in converting the ones into twos and twos into threes. In fact, this is where Gayle makes it a little more difficult for himself and his side. If he doesn't get going, his inability (or reluctance) to rotate the strike makes it tough for the batsman at the other end.
Captains' Wishlist
Virat Kohli: Royal Challengers Bangalore
Badree bowls as miserly as he did vs Mumbai
Their middle and lower order get runs
Chris Gayle fires on all cylinders at the top
Steven Smith: Rising Pune Supergiant
Rahane gives the team a good start
Dhoni plays the role of a finisher again
The bowlers are more consistent and effective
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