Challengers, Daredevils seek consistency

Royal Challengers Bangalore will have to play out of their skins for a win while Delhi Daredevils will look to shrug off inconsistent form when the two Indian sides lock horns in a potential high-voltage League B match of the Champions League Twenty20 in Bangalore on Saturday.

In a match that will see several stars of the game in action, Royal Challengers, who were thumped by Victoria Bushrangers in the League B opener on Thursday, just cannot afford to lose, as that would confirm their ouster from the tournament.

The Bangalore squad is well-balanced on paper, with world-class batsmen and bowlers in their ranks, but they haven't been able to get their act together in the tournament, having won just one game out of four.

Any side which has Robin Uthappa, Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid, Ross Taylor, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey and Mark Boucher is a formidable batting unit, but they havn't fired in unison in two of the four matches they played.

On the bowling front also, Royal Challengers boasts of Anil Kumble, Kallis, Dale Steyn, Roelof van der Merwe and Praveen Kumar, but, here again, except for Kallis, none have been consistent.

Royal Challengers need an inspired performance from Kumble against the likes of former India teammates Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.

Incidentally, Delhi Daredevils has similar concerns with its batting.

Their key player, Tillakaratne Dilshan, is struggling, and, more importantly, the burden of captaincy seems to have bogged down Gautam Gambhir. Only Sehwag appears to be enjoying his game, while consistency eludes Dinesh Karthik.

One department that could tilt the balance in Daredevils's favour is their bowling, with Australia's Dirk Nannes carrying over his red-hot form of Indian Premier League II. He took four wickets in the two group matches.

Daredevils have also been strengthened by the good showing of retired Australian great Glenn McGrath in their last match against Wayamba of Sri Lanka.

The born-again Ashish Nehra is yet to make a mark in the tournament while Amit Mishra has been average so far.

Squads (from):

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Anil Kumble (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Balachandra Akhil, Rajesh Bishnoi, Mark Boucher, Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Virat Kohli, Praveen Kumar, Manish Pandey, Ross Taylor, Robin Uthappa, Roelof van der Merwe and Vinay Kumar.

Delhi Daredevils: Gautam Gambhir (c), Virender Sehwag, Rajat Bhatia, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dinesh Karthik, Mithun Manhas, Amit Mishra, Yogesh Nagar, Dirk Nannes, Ashish Nehra, Aavishkar Salvi, Pradeep Sangwan, Owais Shah, Manoj Tiwary.