RR vs RCB Highlights, IPL 2021: Maxwell stars as Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Rajasthan Royals by 7 wickets

Wicket is nice. Lot of people who have batted first and won the game at this venue. As a team we were a bit down. Had a long chat yesterday. Revisited the purpose of playing the game. Lots of supporters back home. Karthik Tyagi comes in place of Jayden Unadkat.

----- RR captain Sanju Samson

“Going to bowl first. Feel like the pitch remained good in the last game. If you get off a decent start you can get runs consistently. Feel as a batting unit we're doing a good job and want to continue that. Want to provide our bowlers with the conditions - it's a new pitch. We asked for the guys to be brave in crunch moments and they showed that in the last game. I feel like I'm hitting the ball the best I have in a while. Just one change: Garton makes his IPL debut in place of Jamieson.”

— RCB captain Virat Kohli

George Garton gets his maiden cap for Royal Challengers Bangalore. Can he do wonders?

Royal Challengers Bangalore win toss, elect to bowl against Rajasthan Royals.

Harshal Patel: Adaptation has always been a key part of my game, I adapt well to different situations and different conditions. That is something that I pride myself on. The grounds are bigger here and the wickets are slower, it suits my type of bowling. My mindset hasn't changed, my role hasn't changed. It was just a mental tweak to adapt to the conditions. More often than not you know what deliveries to be bowling in the death overs, execution is the key. At the top of my mark I am very sure of what I want to bowl. It's easy to say not to look at the points table, it's very tempting to look at it. At the end of the day, it doesn't serve any purpose. The talk in the dressing room is to focus on the process and the brand of cricket we play. What we did in the last two games, we came out all guns blazing with the ball and with the bat as well. We'll try to play the same brand, play consistently and hopefully we get the right result.

“It's a new pitch. Lots of grass on it. Very very hard. I think it'll be pretty good for batting,” reckons Matthew Hayden.

Shivam Dube on Star Sports: IPL is such a league that has a lot of ebbs and flows because there are a lot of talented players in all the teams, it's very competitive. We need to focus on the basics and the positives. Need to make sure we win rather than anything else. Such is life, I have played for RCB in the past, and now I'm playing against them. That's the nature of this league.

His market value never really depended on captaincy but Kohli may have to find form again to stay on top. HT's Rasesh Mandani assesses the future of Virat Kohli brand.

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The toss between Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sanju Samson's Rajasthan Royals will take place in 30 minutes. Are you ready?

* 26: runs Glenn Maxwell needs to complete 7000 T20 runs.

• 3: wickets Mohammed Siraj needs to complete 100 T20 wickets.

• 4: wickets Mohammed Siraj needs to complete 50 IPL wickets.

• 1: wicket Navdeep Saini needs to complete 50 T20 wickets.

• 1: wicket Harshal Patel needs to have most wickets by a RCB bowler in a single IPL edition.

• 9: sixes Sanju Samson needs to complete 200 T20 sixes

• 41: runs David Miller needs to complete 2000 IPL runs.

• 10: sixes David Miller needs to complete 100 IPL sixes.

• 5: sixes Chris Morris needs to complete 100 T20 sixes

• 99: runs Riyan Parag needs to complete 1000 T20 runs

• 6: wickets Chris Morris needs to complete 100 IPL wickets.

• 3: sixes Ab De Villiers needs to complete 250 IPL sixes.

Big surprises in RR's team?

RR's Predicted XI vs RCB: Evin Lewis, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson (C/WK), Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Phillips, Chris Morris, Rahul Tewatia, Shreyas Gopal, Kartik Tyagi/Jaydev Unadkar, Mustafizur Rahman, Chetan Sakariya

Will there be changes in RCB's predicted playing XI vs RR?

RCB's predicted playing XI vs RR: Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (C), KS Bharat (WK), AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Dan Christian, Shahbaz Ahmed, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj

Want to know the full squads of both the teams? We got you sorted!

Royal Challengers Bangalore Squad: Virat Kohli(c), Devdutt Padikkal, Srikar Bharat(w), Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers, Daniel Christian, Shahbaz Ahmed, Kyle Jamieson, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal, Dushmantha Chameera, Sachin Baby, Navdeep Saini, Pavan Deshpande, Rajat Patidar, Mohammed Azharuddeen, George Garton, Wanindu Hasaranga, Suyash Prabhudessai, Tim David, Akash Deep

Rajasthan Royals Squad: Evin Lewis, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson(w/c), Liam Livingstone, Mahipal Lomror, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Chetan Sakariya, Jaydev Unadkat, Mustafizur Rahman, Tabraiz Shamsi, Shreyas Gopal, David Miller, Manan Vohra, KC Cariappa, Glenn Phillips, Shivam Dube, Oshane Thomas, Mayank Markande, Anuj Rawat, Gerald Coetzee, Kuldip Yadav, Akash Singh, Kartik Tyagi

"It is crunch time now. It is pretty simple, we need to start stringing some important results together and like I keep saying win big moments in the game. We need to grab every single point that we possibly can now to push for that last spot." - Rajasthan Royals pacer Chris Morris.

- Shreyas Gopal's record vs RCB: In 7 matches, he has returned 14 wickets, averaging 11.14 and has conceded at 6.50 rpo.

- In the middle overs this season, RR have scored at 8.92, while RCB have at 7.23

- In stark contrast in terms of wickets taken by spin this season, RR just have 6, while RCB have as many as 19.

(Source: Cricbuzz)

Matches: 21

Won: RR: 10, RCB:11

HS (RR) vs RCB: 217

LS (RR) vs RCB: 41

HS (RCB) vs RR: 200

LS (RCB): RR: 62

Hello and welcome to our live blog on IPL 2021, Rajasthan Royals vs Royal Challengers Bangalore contest. The stage is set for big fireworks, but who will come out on top?