IPL 2018: Irfan Pathan picks his preferred playing XI for RCB

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) will face the stern challenge of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their opening encounter of the season at the iconic Eden Gardens. While they don’t have so many injury issues, their opponents have somehow got their gun players fit in time for the tournament. The Indian Premier League (IPL) will commence on April 7 even as RCB will play their first match the very next day. However, Irfan Pathan has picked his preferred playing XI of RCB before the start of their game.

Irfan has joined ESPN Cricinfo as the cricket expert for this season of IPL and has been predicting the first playing XIs of the team in last few days. The left-arm pacer tried to think the way a captain would think while choosing his team and has picked his team.

Will McCullum play?

According to Irfan Pathan, Virat Kohli will not open the innings as RCB possess specialist players to do the job and the skipper can handle the middle-order duties. Brendon McCullum will play as an opener which is a no-brainer as he will be assisted by Parthiv Patel at the top. There is no place for Quinton de Kock as the fast bowler feels that the limit of playing four overseas players would exhaust soon.

The 33-year-old wants Virat to bat at number 3 and AB de Villiers to follow him which will make one of the fiercest middle order in the tournament. Pathan feels that the South African cricketer should get more balls to play so that he can launch an assault on the bowlers at the death. The likes of Mandeep Singh, Sarfraz Khan and Colin de Grandhomme will follow them which looks like a formidable line up as far as the batting is concerned.

Chris Woakes, Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Siraj will form the pace-bowling attack of RCB for Pathan and the lone spinning option in the team would be Yuzvendra Chahal undoubtedly. He also picked Murugan Ashwin in case the team wanted to drop Siraj but surprisingly there was no place for Washinton Sundar who has done so well at the highest level.

Here’s Pathan’s playing XI for RCB: Brendon McCullum, Parthiv Patel (wk), Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers, Mandeep Singh, Sarfraz Khan, Colin de Grandhomme, Chris Woakes, Yuzvendra Chahal, Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Siraj

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