Bengaluru, April 2 (IANS) Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bowl first against Mumbai Indians in their first match of IPL 2023 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, here on Sunday.
RCB are playing their first match in their home ground after three years of absence and are coming into the competition on the back of making the playoffs in the last three seasons.
Mumbai, on the other hand, are coming after a bottom place finish in last year’s tournament.
After winning the toss, Faf said he, Michael Bracewell, Glenn Maxwell, and Reece Topley are the overseas players in RCB playing eleven.
“There was a bit of dew when we practised. We have been so excited to get started tonight. This is one of the great stadiums to play cricket in,” he said.
“Our first goal is to make those playoffs, and follow the processes. We have to make sure we get off to a good start, 14 games to go in the tournament, and then we can talk about that,” he added.
Mumbai skipper Rohit Sharma said Tim David, Cameron Green, Jofra Archer and Jason Behrendorff (in the substitutes) are the overseas players for the match.
“With the new Impact Player rule, teams are backing themselves to chase. The pitch looks good and we have to come out with a positive intent,” said Rohit.
“Last season was a disappointment for us but again, we know exactly where we went wrong. We will try to correct the mistakes we made last time. There have been a few new faces as well in the side, so that will help. A great achievement to captain in 200 games,” he added.
Playing XIs:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (captain), Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Suryakumar Yadav, Cameron Green, Tilak Varma, Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Jofra Archer and Arshad Khan
Substitutes: Jason Behrendorff, Vishnu Vinod, Ramandeep Singh, Shams Mulani, Sandeep Warrier
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Faf Du Plessis (captain), Virat Kohli, Michael Bracewell, Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Shahbaz Ahmed, Harshal Patel, Reece Topley, Mohammed Siraj, Karn Sharma and Akash Deep
Substitutes: David Willey, Sonu Yadav, Mahipal Lomror, Suyash Prabhudessai, Anuj Rawat
–IANS
nr/ak
