IPL 2021: Virat Kohli's RCB faces Rohit Sharma's MI in opening duel

Mumbai Indians MI looking to win their sixth Indian Premier League IPL title and complete a hattrick of titles will face Royal Challengers Bangalore RCB who are yet to win a title in the inaugural game of the Indian Premier League 2021 here on Friday nightThe battle will be between two of Indias finest whiteball players Both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are among the best international batsmen in white ball cricket and are Indias most experienced players While Sharma will lead MI Kohli will lead RCBOn paper MI are like a welloiled machine The players have been around for years and have tasted success They know the formula needed to get successRCB on the other hand have always struggled to get their combination right Often their middleorder batting has been found wanting while their pace bowling has lacked varietyLast year though they did well to make it to the playoffs and for this year they have brought in some impact players like hardhitter Glenn Maxwell and express pace bowler Kyle Jamieson who can also provide hardhitting option at the endMI have won almost double the number of games played between the two teams over the yearsWhile MI have won 17 matches RCB have won just 9 matchesThe Mumbai franchise will no doubt go in as favourites again in the tournament opener But RCBs powerpacked lineup may just surprise themThe big worry for RCB would be Devdutt Padikkal While the lefthanded opening batsmen who impressed in his debut season with RCB in 2020 has joined the team after testing negative for Covid19 following a positive test it will be interesting to see if RCB play him in the tournament openerIn Mumbai Indians case they will be in two minds on South African wicketkeeperbatsman Quinton de Kock who has just arrived from an ODI series at home against PakistanMumbai players to watch out forRohit SharmaHardik PandyaJasprit BumrahBangalore players to watch out forVirat KohliAB de VilliersYuzvendra ChahalSquadsRoyal Challengers Bangalore Virat Kohli captain Devdutt Padikkal Finn Allen wicketkeeper AB de Villiers wicketkeeper Pavan Deshpande Washington Sundar Daniel Sams Yuzvendra Chahal Adam Zampa Shahbaz Ahmed Mohammed Siraj Navdeep Saini Kane Richardson Harshal Patel Glenn Maxwell Sachin Baby Rajat Patidar Mohammed Azharuddeen Kyle Jamieson Daniel Christian Suyash Prabhudessai KS BharatMumbai Indians Rohit Sharma captain Adam Milne Aditya Tare Anmolpreet Singh Anukul Roy Arjun Tendulkar Chris Lynn Dhawal Kulkarni Hardik Pandya Ishan Kishan wicketkeeper James Neesham Jasprit Bumrah Jayant Yadav Kieron Pollard Krunal Pandya Marco Jansen Mohsin Khan Nathan CoulterNile Piyush Chawla Quinton De Kock wicketkeeper Rahul Chahar Saurabh Tiwary Suryakumar Yadav Trent Boult Yudhvir SinghMatch starts at 730 pmThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever