Who Will Replace Injured AB de Villiers In The RCB XI?
Apr 18, 2017 at 5:34 PM
Royal Challengers Bangalore has suffered a big blow ahead of their tie against Gujarat Lions as AB de Villiers will be missing the today’s game due to an injury. The south African player himself confirmed the news on Twitter and wrote:
Here is the screenshot of the tweet which de Villiers deleted:
This has added to the woes of the team as already the team is placed at the last position in the points table with just one win the last five games and now need to win almost each game they play.
An injury to one of their mainstay batsman has now opened doors for Chris Gaye and youngster Travis Head, who have to perform at any cost to keep the hopes of the team alive. Let’s look at the chances of both the players whether who will be in the team as a replacement of ABD –
Chris Gayle
He looks the likely replacement for ABD. Though he is yet to fire in the tournament so far but he is himself burning from inside to get those three runs to cross 10000 runs in T20 cricket and then move to the next level.
Probably it is the pressure to complete the record that has been the reason for his failure till now and RCB should give him a longer rope so as the opener could free himself from the pressure and get some runs for his team.
Travis Head
The second batsman who is in line to replace AB de Villiers is Travis Head. He played the first game of the tournament for RCB but was dropped despite playing an innings of 30 of 22 balls. The 23-year old player has played four IPL games till now in which he has scored 84 runs.
The Australian batsman would be vying to get back on the field for the team and contribute to the success of the side. So there might be a case when skipper Virat Kohli will prefer Travis Head over Gayle, looking at the form of West Indian’ player.
Still, in the end, Gayle’s stature in the local T20 leagues and his previous IPL record will be the biggest factor that can go against Travis Head.
Royal Challengers will take on Gujarat Lions on April 18 at SCA stadium in Rajkot.