IPL 2017: Match 31: Gujarat Lions opt to chase against Royal Challengers Bangalore

Bengaluru, April 27: Gujarat Lions skipper Suresh Raina won the toss against Royal Challengers Bangalore and invited his counterpart Virat Kohli to bat first in the league match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017 on Thursday (April 27).

Raina won the toss and decided to chase against Kohli-led side in front of latter's home ground at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Talking after losing the toss, Kohli said it was a win-win situation for him as he wanted to bat first anyway.

Staring at elimination after an inexplicable batting collapse followed by a wash-out, Royal Challengers Bangalore will be aiming for revival as they face out-of-sorts Gujarat Lions at home.

The Bangalore outfit will have to win all their remaining six matches to keep alive the hopes of making the knockouts.

For India captain Kohli, it will



be difficult to digest the fact that RCB can be out of the tournament before the knock-out phase.

However, they would fancy their chances against an out-of-form Gujarat Lions, who have gathered just four points from seven games and are languishing at the bottom of the table.

The Lions batting has also been quite dismal with big guns making contributions only intermittently and would be desperate to arrest this slide.

Playing XI:

RCB XI: Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli (Captain), Mandeep Singh, AB de Villiers, Travis Head, Kedar Jadhav (Wicketkeeper), Aniket Choudhary, Pawan Negi, Samuel Badree, Sreenath Aravind, Yuzvendra Chahal.

GL XI: Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Suresh Raina (Captain), Dinesh Karthik (Wicketkeeper), Ishan Kishan, Ravindra Jadeja, James Faulkner, Andrew Tye, Basil Thampi, Nathu Singh, Ankit Soni.