68 - That's the number Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) were bowled out to during the first leg of their clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on April 23 in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022.
Five years ago, on that same date had seen the Bengaluru franchise collapsed against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as they could only score 49 runs, which remains the lowest score by a team in IPL history to date.
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Talking about the first leg game, RCB suffered a meltdown early in the match as Marco Jansen got rid of Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Anuj Rawat in a single over itself.
Their woes continued as they lost wickets at regular intervals with young Suyash Prabhudessai top-scoring for his team at 15 runs in 20 balls. In reply, chasing a target of 69 runs, SRH were cruising at 42 without any loss after five overs, at the time of writing.
Now, the two sides are facing again for the second time in the IPL 2022 and SRH have left Jansen out. At the toss, after losing it and being asked to bowl first, Kane Williamson said, "Was due to losing one. Was undecided but we have been chasing well. Important we do the job with the ball upfront. Have two changes. Abbott and Gopal miss out. Farooqi and Suchith come in".
Will SRH miss Marco Jansen in their must-win clash against RCB?
Surely Jagadeesha Suchith got Virat Kohli out for a duck in the ongoing game, but Faf du Plessis and Rajat Patidar started charging soon after the wicket fell. With misfielding being added, SRH will have to get a way to stop the two smashing batters.
Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, after the toss had said that keeping Jansen away from this game is a mistake. He added that, if he was not injured, then there was no need to sideline him.
In the points table, while RCB is sitting in the fourth spot with six wins from 11 games, SRH is in the sixth position with five wins and as many losses in 10 games.
SRH vs RCB playing XI:
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Dinesh Karthik(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Josh Hazlewood
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson(c), Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran(w), Shashank Singh, Jagadeesha Suchith, Kartik Tyagi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Umran Malik
