Dale Steyn not playing: Royal Challengers Bangalore have rested their veteran fast bowler for today’s IPL 2020 match vs SRH.
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During the 52nd match of the ongoing 13th season of the Indian Premier League between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad in Sharjah, Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner has won the toss and chose to field.
“We’ll have a bowl. Having positive attitude and coming out here, we obviously have to win both the games to make it to the finals. For us, it’s about to come out and start fresh and forget about the last game. It’s how I approach every game, try to come out and do my best and get us off to a good start,” Warner told Star Sports during the toss.
Being asked about the changes to their Playing XI, Warner confirmed that all-rounder Vijay Shankar will miss this match due to an injury which he suffered in the last match. All-rounder Abhishek Sharma, who has already played eight matches this season, has been reinstated into the XI.
Why is Dale Steyn not playing today’s IPL 2020 match vs SRH?
Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli, on the other hand, revealed that he was looking forward to bat first on a “dry” surface. Much like Sunrisers, Royal Challengers have also made a couple of changes as all-rounder Shivam Dube and pacer Dale Steyn have been benched for all-rounder Isuru Udana and pacer Navdeep Saini.
“We wanted to bat first to be honest. It’s pretty dry. We think it’ll get slower and slower as the game progresses. Pretty happy to be bating first. It was a strange phase of batting out there (against Mumbai Indians), whatever we hit went to hand. Usually it doesn’t happen with our batting line-up, but these things happen on the field,” Kohli told Star Sports during the toss.
While Kohli wasn’t asked about the reason behind dropping Steyn, one feels it has been done due to the 37-year old bowler’s mediocre form this season. In three T20s this season, Steyn’s solitary wicket has come at an economy and strike rate of 11.40 and 70 respectively.
