It's now or never for Shubman Gill and his men

Those ten minutes of mayhem from Will Jacks would still be fresh in the memories of every single Gujarat Titans (GT) player. That’s right, the 25-year-old from England took just 10 deliveries to go from 50 to 100 when Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) took on GT in Ahmedabad last week. It’s now time for the reverse fixture, with RCB hosting Shubman Gill and Co. on April 4 (Saturday).

The last time Gill played an IPL game in Bengaluru, the opener knocked RCB out of the tournament with a stupendous century in 2023. The Titans would now hope for some sort of a similar performance from their captain to keep them alive in the IPL 2024. 

GT need to win all of their remaining four games to give themselves the best chance of qualifying for the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Royal Challengers have already lost that privilege and will have to rely on other results. For now, they have to win their remaining three matches and hope that the other results go in their favour.

RCB vs GT Head-to-Head

Overall - Games 4 | RCB 2 | GT 2 

In Bengaluru - Games 1 | RCB 0 | GT 1

Venue details

The M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru has always been a high-scoring venue. It has hosted four games so far this season and the batters here have scored runs at an average of 34.9, the third-best amongst all venues used in this edition. 

The scoring rate has been 10.3, with both pacers and spinners struggling to pick wickets or contain runs. Only once in eight innings has a team managed to post a score of less than 175. In the last match at this venue, almost 550 runs were scored across two innings. 

Weather forecast

Bengaluru have been witnessing a bit of rain in the afternoon for a couple of days but the evenings have been clear and we should probably get a full game. The temperature is expected to be around 30-34 degrees Celsius, and the humidity will be in the range of 30-47%. 

Things to watch out for

Get Jacks early or get punished

It’s been an all-or-nothing season for Jacks. Three out of his four dismissals have come in the first 10 deliveries this season, showing the batter becomes a different beast once he gets set. In two innings where he has faced more than 10 balls, Jacks has scores of 55 off 32 and 100* off 41.

Jacks had an interesting innings builder in the previous game – while he reached fifty in 31 balls, he raced to a hundred in just 10 more deliveries. He was absolutely brutal against Mohit Sharma and Rashid Khan and if GT don’t find a way to dismiss him early, we could witness another Will Jacks-carnage, this time at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. 

Also read: Will Jacks - the man who left Virat Kohli and others in disbelief

Mohit looking clueless in the last few games

The 35-year-old seamer had a pretty good start to IPL 2024, picking up seven wickets in the first four games at an economy of 8.2 despite bowling most of his overs at the death. However, he has been taken to the cleaners in the last six matches, picking up just three wickets while going at an economy of 13.6.

In the reverse fixture, Jacks whacked him for 29 runs in an over. Gujarat have a couple of quality options in the spin department, but Mohit is the only household name they have in the pace department, and they would hope he finds his rhythm back in the last four league games.

Probable XIs

RCB - Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green, Mahipal Lomror (IP), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Swapnil Singh, Karn Sharma, Mohammed Siraj, Yash Dayal (IP)

GT - Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Shubman Gill (c), Sai Sudharsan (IP), David Miller, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan, Rashid Khan, Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma, Sandeep Warrier (IP)

Telecast and streaming details

The match will be live on Star Sports Network and live-streamed on Jio Cinema. The game will start at 7:30 PM, with the toss happening at 7 PM.

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