IPL 2019: The overseas players who can replace the outgoing Moeen Ali and Marcus Stoinis for Royal Challengers Bangalore

It’s come down to the business end of this year’s IPL. Most of the teams have got their team combinations sorted out by now. They have decided on the four overseas players and have revolved their strategies and plans around them.

With the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 coming up shortly, most of the foreign or overseas players, especially from England, Australia and South Africa will leave the IPL for national team duties.

With Royal Challengers Bangalore needing to win their remaining four games to have any chance of qualifying for the playoffs, this comes as a big hurdle for Virat Kohli’s men. Two of their star performers - Moeen Ali and Marcus Stoinis, will leave post tonight’s fixture against the Kings XI Punjab.

Ali will be a huge loss for RCB. The talented English all-rounder has been in fine hitting form and has been rather effective with his off-spinners as well. Him not being a part of the squad will have a big impact on RCB’s chances of making it to the playoffs.

With 216 runs at an amazing strike-rate of 168.75, Ali has stepped up when the likes of Kohli or AB de Villiers have failed to put up a big score. Stoinis with his effective off-cutters and change ups is another blow for RCB, who have struggle to contain runs on any pitch. The Australian is also more than capable of making some quickfire runs.

The cause for concern for RCB and their fans is that the cupboard is rather empty and bare when it comes to backup overseas players. They have Shimron Hetmeyer, Colin De Grandhomme and Tim Southee to choose from.

RCB would most likely go in with De Grandhomme and Southee for the remining games. They would hope both the Kiwis can put up a much better show than what they did earlier in the season. Or else, the team management must impose faith on Indian youngsters -Washington Sundar and Shivam Dhube.

How will each franchise cope with the loss of world-class overseas players is something that would be interesting to watch . Will RCB go on expected lines and pick the benched overseas players? Or will they go in with only three overseas players for their last three games, after tonight's match with the KXIP?

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