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Kumble: ‘Kohli crucial for RCB especially while batting first’ (2:23)
Anil Kumble and Danny Morrison look ahead to Kohli’s Delhi homecoming (2:23)
Apr 27, 2025, 09:54 AM ET
Royal Challengers Bengaluru chose to bowl vs Delhi Capitals
Rajat Patidar, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain, chose to bowl after winning the toss against Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in IPL 2025. He expected the pitch to remain good to bat on through both innings, and was confident of his team’s ability to chase a target.
RCB were forced to make one change to their side, with a fever ruling out the opener Phil Salt. This meant they handed the England allrounder Jacob Bethell an IPL debut. It remained to be seen where Bethell, who bats left-handed and bowls left-arm orthodox spin, would bat, and whether he would take Salt’s place at the top of the order alongside local boy Virat Kohli.
DC welcomed back Faf du Plessis for the first time since he suffered a groin injury in the reverse fixture between these sides in Bengaluru on April 10. With du Plessis coming in for Ashutosh Sharma, DC had four overseas players in their XI again, after naming just three in their last match against Lucknow Super Giants. Ashutosh, however, could come in as an Impact Player if DC need him to bat, given their batting-first XI already has six bowling options.
The winner of this contest will become the first side to get to 14 points this season.
Delhi Capitals batting-first XI: 1 Faf du Plessis, 2 Abishek Porel, 3 Karun Nair, 4 KL Rahul (wk), 5 Axar Patel (capt), 6 Tristan Stubbs, 7 Vipraj Nigam, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Dushmantha Chameera, 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Mukesh Kumar.
DC’s Impact Player options: Ashutosh Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Madhav Tiwari, Tripurana Vijay.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru bowling-first XI: 1 Virat Kohli, 2 Jacob Bethell, 3 Rajat Patidar (capt), 4 Romario Shepherd, 5 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 6 Tim David, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Suyash Sharma, 10 Josh Hazlewood, 11 Yash Dayal.
RCB’s Impact Player options: Devdutt Padikkal, Rasikh Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Liam Livingstone, Swapnil Singh.
