IPL 2022: Predicted Opening Pair Of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)

Royal Challengers Bangalore roped in 19 players to go with the three players they had retained ahead of the mega auction. They had retained Virat Kohli for 15 crores, Glenn Maxwell for 11crores, and Mohammed Siraj for 7 crores. They did a pretty good job at the auction roping in a few reputed national and international players.

Faf du Plessis, Harshal Patel, Wanindu Hasaranga, Josh Hazlewood, were some of the key players that RCB picked during IPL auction 2022. At Rs. 10.75 crores each, Harshal Patel and Wanindu Hasaranaga were the most expensive picks for RCB. The franchise would ideally hope that these players come together to end RCB’s trophy-less run in the IPL.

The franchise will miss the services of AB De Villiers who retired from the IPL after the 2021 season. Faf du Plessis is a multi-skilled cricketer who can be seen as his replacement. He is also likely to be named the skipper of the side with the management hinting towards the same direction.

The franchise missed out on getting back Devdutt Padikkal who opened alongside Kohli for the last two seasons. While Kohli will open the batting,m the management will have to think about the other potential opener in the playing XI. In this article, we take a look at the predicted opening pair of RCB ahead of IPL 2022.

IPL 2022: Predicted Opening Pair Of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)

Virat Kohli

Kohli is the top scorer in the history of the IPL with 6283 runs to his name in the tournament. He has been opening the batting since the last few seasons and will continue to do so. Kohli is the best batsman on the side has looked to play as many deliveries and maximise his scoring opportunities. Opening the batting also allows him to set the pace, especially in a chase.

Having relieved off captaincy duties cricket experts are of the view that he will be hungrier than ever before to score runs. It will be interesting to see how many runs he ends up with this season.

Faf du Plessis

Du Plessis will be Kohli’s ideal opening partner. Being experienced players, both will complement each other to the best of their ability. Faf is not alien to opening the batting as well. He has been opening for CSK since they came back into the IPL in 2018. The former Protean skipper scored 633 runs in IPL 2021 and is fresh off a BPL season as well with form as his friend.

He is more than close to being announced as the skipper of Bangalore ahead of IPL 2021. How he balances out the two different metrics will be an interesting observation.

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