Brendon McCullum, left, and Dwayne Smith need to get going at the top of the order for Gujarat Lions. PTIRajkot: Struggling to find form after three losses in four matches, Gujarat Lions would look to make the home advantage count when they take on Royal Challengers Bangalore in their IPL match here on Tuesday.
Lions had a dream debut last season by finishing third. But, they are struggling this year, losing back to back games, against Kolkata Knight Riders at home and Sunrisers Hyderabad away, before registering their first win of IPL-10 by beating Rising Pune Supergiant at home.
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The Suresh Raina-led side suffered a six-wicket loss to Mumbai Indians in their last game and is now in seventh spot, just above bottom-placed RCB, in the league table. Lions will be looking to get back to winning ways at the SCA stadium.
Lions' top order batsmen like Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Raina and Dinesh Karthik have been in good touch, but the problem has been that they have not been firing in unison.
West Indian all-rounder Dwayne Smith could not score big against Mumbai, but is very destructive with McCullum as an opener. Finch did not play the game against Mumbai duo to his missing cricket kit and would shoulder the Lions innings in lower order.
Bowling has been a matter of concern for Lions in the first two matches where they picked up just one wicket, but the inclusion of Andrew Tye has added sting to the bowling attack. Tye made a dream debut against Pune by taking five wickets, including a hat-trick. He also picked up two wickets against Mumbai.
Praveen Kumar looked good in the first couple of overs and gave early breakthroughs for Lions against Pune and Mumbai, but he has proved expensive in the death overs. Munaf Patel played his first game on Sunday and took one wicket while Kerala pacer Basil Thampi was impressive against Mumbai.
The spin department still looked unimpressive even after the return of Ravindra Jadeja who has been handy with both the bat and ball But, the other spinners like Shadab Jakati and Shivil Kaushik have gone for plenty.
Last year's runners-up RCB have also been struggling, with just one win against Delhi Daredevils from their five games. They are now at the bottom of the eight-team table with two points.
RCB captain Virat Kohli will be desperate to end his side's poor run. PTI Skipper Virat Kohli, who missed RCB's first two matches due to a shoulder injury, showed his class as he scored 62 in his first game of the tournament against KXIP.
RCB seemed to be still looking for the right combination and some other big players have not been playing to their potential. Swashbuckling West Indian batsman Chris Gayle has scored just 60 runs from the three matches he has played so far and was dropped twice, including the last game against Rising Pune Supergiant.
Kohli, Shane Watson and A.B. De Villers, along with Kedar Jadhav, are the key batsmen for RCB, but they are yet to fire collectively.
In the bowling department, RCB looked much better than Lions, with seamers like Tymal Mills, Billy Stanlake, and Sreenath Arvind to go along with leg-spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Samuel Badree.
Badree took a hat-trick against Mumbai though his splendid bowling effort went in vain as RCB lost that game.
The teams (from): Gujarat Lions: Suresh Raina (capt), Akshadeep Nath, Shubham Agarwal, Basil Thampi, Dwayne Bravo, Chirag Suri, James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Manpreet Gony, Ishan Kishan, Ravindra Jadeja, Shadab Jakati, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Dhaval Kulkarni, Shivil Kaushik, Praveen Kumar, Brandon McCullum, Munaf Patel, Pratham Singh, Jason Roy, Pradeep Sangwan, Jaydev Shah, Shelly Shaurya, Nathu Singh, Dwayne Smith, Tejas Baroka and Andrew Tye.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (capt), Tymal Mills, Aniket Chaudhary, Praveen Dubey, Billy Stanlake, A.B. de Villers, Chris Gayle, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Mandeep Singh, Adam Milne, Sarfaraz Khan, Sreenath Arvind, Kedar Jadhav, Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Sameuel Badree, Iqbal Abdulla, Travis Head, Sachin Baby, Avesh Khan and Tabraiz Shamsi.
