Royal Challengers Bangalore have a provisional playoff berth in sight and Chennai Super Kings require morale-lifting win. But beyond the goals of the team, the IPL match on Saturday offers an opportunity to see the icon Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni battling each other, perhaps, one last time in the league. Before completing the possibility, an eye of the situation will reveal that RCB can increase its tally up to 16 with a win, from where they may not potentially stutter into the race for qualifiers with three matches. A win will already instill some confidence in the CSK unit that it can achieve some speed and can eliminate the middle-table somewhere, and can avoid ignorance of being a wooden spoon holder.
And each of the objectives is closely connected as Kohli and Dhoni, who is the hero of one of the brightest brown bromance stories in Indian cricket.
But at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, they are going completely against each other. Kohli has built a mini hot streak, scoring four fifties in his last five innings and pushed with 443 runs for the Orange Cap.
The champion batter will be eager to produce another small masterclass to help RCB get closer to the play-off berth.
He will be happy to see Devdutt Padikal giving concrete support at number 3, which made two half -centuries in the last two innings.
But Kohli would definitely like to see contribution more than his early partner Phil Salt, so that he does not need to be heavy alone.
Similarly, RCB will also be eager to regain his smooth hitting form of Captain Rajat Patidar in the first part of the IPL, as his final sufficient innings came to seven matches ago.
However, he can see the under-firing CSK bowling unit, except Pesar Khalel Ahmed and spinner Noor Ahmed.
But the Super Kings batsmen, who have taken a collective dip in this season, will not get any relief as they will be against Josh Hazelwood, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma.
He has worked well within his boundaries, and CSK would hop that his batsmen such as Ayush Mhatre, Sam Curan, Developed Brevis and Shivam Dubey will set fire to Dhoni to give their things to do their things at the business end of the innings.
In the past, Dhoni’s quick 30s converted CSK’s middleing yoga into competitive people, but the top-order malfunction has robbed the skipper cameo of his general impact this year.
But for his end of fans, the presence of Kohli and Dhoni, who said that his participation in IPL 2026 depends on his body’s ability to face the demands of the league, would be a permanent reminder to those days when he puts several Indian victories together.
Now, they are standing on the opposite spectrum, but AFicionados will dream of turning back once and time wheels to produce a signat classic.
Teams (from): Royal Challengers Bangalore: Rajat Patidar (C) Phil Salat, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, Jitesh Sharma (W), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazelwood, Yash Sham, Manoj, Manoj Bhandage, Jaik Salam, Jaik Salam, Jaikab, Jaikab, Jaikab, Jaikab Bethel, Mohit Rathi, Swastik Chikara, Abhinandan Singh.
Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (C, WK), Sheikh Rashid, Ayush Matre, Deepak Hooda, Sam Curan, Ravindra Jadeja, Davld Brevis, Shivam Dubey, Noor Ahmed, Khalil Ahmed, Mathesh Pathirana, Ansul Kambosh, Rawan, Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tripathi, Shree Tripathi, Shree Tripathi, Shree Tripathi, Shree Tripathi, Rachin Ravindra, Mukesh Chaudhary, Nathan Ellis, C Andre Siddharth, Vansh Bedi.
The match starts at 7.30 pm. PTI Ung AM UNG AM am Am Hoon
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