When the first match in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 has witnessed 69 matches so far, and not many would have thought that they last league match would be so interesting.
After 69 matches in the league, the top spot is still up for grabs, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru will be making an effort to claim it when they take on Lucknow Super Giants at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru are in the third position with 17 points, behind Punjab Kings (19) and Gujarat Titans (18). Victory will take RCB to 19 points and grab them a date with Punjab Kings in Hew Chandigarh, pushing Gujarat Titans, who lost their last match by 83 runs to Chennai Super Kings, to the third spot and Eliminator encounter with MI.
So, it's a must-win match for RCB as it will get them a chance to play the Qualifier 2 match in case they go down in Qualifier 1.
It is a fact that we lost the last game after a big break and it is down to a lot of reasons, not having played in the last 3 weeks, being a little rusty and it has been documented very well that it was a good knock on the chin for us, a good wake-up call and now looking forward, even though we have guaranteed a place in one of the playoff games, it is important to focus on Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and what is going to happen in the Ekana Stadium and that is what we are focusing on, how best we can start bowling, how can we put pressure back on the opponents, so we will be focusing on that and once that is done, we will look at how and who we play in the playoffs.
RCB got a timely boost ahead of their last league match as Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood is set to join them after recovering from an injury. Rangarajan said they are looking forward to playing with the Aussie pacer.
There is no doubt about how good Josh Hazlewood is as a player and what great impact he has had on us, but it is also important to remember in his absence, we played 2 games, we won 1 and we lost another, Lungi Ngidi had filled in very well and we believe in the strength of the whole squad, there is Nuwan Thushara who is chomping at the pits and even people forget that we have a very talented Indian pace bowler in Rasikh Salam, so while we are very happy about Hazlewood coming back to the squad, we and everybody needs to remember the quality that is existing within our playing squad.
RCB will be banking on its top order of Phil Salt and Virat Kohli, with skipper Rajat Patidar and Tim David. Lucknow Giants too have got off to a her start but lost steam in the middle of the season.
In their last five matches, RCB has won three and lost while LSG has won one and lost four matches. Overall, in the seven matches played between the two squads.
Probable playing XIs: Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Phil Salt, Virat Kohli, 3 Mayank Agarwal, Rajat Patidar, Liam Livingstone, 6 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Krunal Pandya, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10, Josh Hazlewood, 11 Yash Dayal, 12 Suyash Sharma.
Lucknow Super Giants: Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran, Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Ayush Badoni, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Himmat Singh, 8 Digvesh Rathi, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Akash Deep, 11 Will O'Rourke, 12 Akash Singhebds.
