After 59 matches and close to two months of rigorous T20 cricket, the time has finally arrived for the final of the VIVO IPL 2016. It will be a battle between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. The Sunrisers have been the comeback kings of the season as they put aside a shoddy start, which saw them lose their first 2 matches, to become one of the contenders for the IPL title. RCB also have a pretty similar tale to tell as they were struggling in the initial stages of the tournament but went on a winning spree to become the first team to make it to the final.
SRH have been quite strong in the batting department; however, their bowlers have been the real heroes for them this time around. Skipper David Warner’s captaincy has also been quite effective and has been able to inspire his players to do well with his own batting performances.
For the Challengers, it has mainly been about their powerful batting line-up with captain Virat Kohli leading from the front. The bowling attack had quite a poor season to start off with but have only improved to produce some fine performances in recent matches.
The match promises to be a humdinger with both teams equally determined to lay claim to their maiden IPL crown. It will be interesting to see which team emerges as the 2016 IPL champion.
Venue: Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
Match date: 29 May 2016
Match timings: 20:00 IST, 14:30 GMT
If Royal Challengers Bangalore bat first
Predicted Score: 180 and above
The RCB batting line-up has easily been the best in this year’s IPL with skipper Virat Kohli firing all cylinders. Kohli is the leading run-scorer in the tournament by a huge margin and is 81 runs away from achieving the magical figure of 1,000 runs in a single season. The ace Indian batsman has scored 4 centuries in the tournament and has averaged in excess of 80 so far.
AB de Villiers has provided his captain outstanding support, scoring close to 700 runs at an average of 56.83 and a strike rate of more than 170. Wicket-keeper batsman KL Rahul has also enjoyed his time in the middle with 386 runs in 11 innings and his terrific performance has earned him a spot in the Indian limited-overs team. Such has been the form of these three players that Bangalore have been able to afford an underperforming Chris Gayle in the team.
It has been a brilliant first season for Shane Watson in RCB colours as he is currently their leading wicket-taker with 20 wickets. Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has once again proved his mettle by picking up 20 wickets in the season, which has helped him become another player from the franchise to be selected in the national team.
Pacemen Sreenath Aravind and Chris Jordan have backed up Watson and Chahal quite well with 9 and 8 wickets respectively. Left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla has also been pretty decent with 6 wickets so far and played a good hand with the bat in his team’s qualifier against Gujarat Lions.
If Sunrisers Hyderabad bat first
Predicted Score: 170 and above
The Sunrisers have relied quite heavily on their captain, David Warner, to deliver with the bat in the tournament and the Australian has not disappointed. Warner is the second highest run-scorer in the tournament with a staggering tally of 779 runs, which is also the second best by any batsman in a single IPL season after Kohli’s 919. The left-hander has 8 fifties this year, the most in the ongoing tournament, and has scored his runs at a strike rate of almost 150.
The only other noteworthy performance with the bat for SRH has been from opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan. The southpaw has scored 473 runs at an average of nearly 40, including 4 half-centuries. Yuvraj Singh has also made a few valuable contributions in the middle order for Hyderabad. All-rounder Bipul Sharma has played a couple of handy cameos for the team in their last couple of games.
Simply put, the Sunrisers bowling attack has been outstanding in the current edition of the IPL. Bhuvneshwar Kumar presently holds the Purple Cap with 23 wickets in his kitty and seems to have rediscovered himself in the 2016 IPL. The tournament this year has also seen the birth of a new bowling superstar in the form of Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman. After a great performance for his national team, Rahman has filled the IPL with his magic by claiming 16 wickets and bowling very economically.
Youngster Barinder Sran has also capitalised on the chances that he has received to grab 13 wickets in as many matches. SRH are unfortunate to be missing out on the services of Ashish Nehra in such an important match but he did well in the few matches that he played. All-rounder Moises Henriques has delivered with the ball, too, and so has Ben Cutting in the 3 matches that he has been a part of.
Probable Winners: Royal Challengers Bangalore
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