Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], May 4 : Ahead of his side's Indian Premier League (IPL) game against Gujarat Titans (GT) head coach Andy Flower said that he is looking forward to attacking bowling from pacers Mohammed Siraj and Yash Dayal.
RCB will lock horns with GT at Bengaluru's M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday. RCB is at the bottom of the points table, with three wins and seven losses, with a total of six points. GT is at eighth place with four wins and six losses, giving them eight points.
Andy said on RCB Game Day as quoted by a press release from the team, "Our batsmen will definitely be looking to bat out there in the middle not only on a good batting deck but in front of our brilliant crowd. What I have enjoyed seeing is our fast bowling unit, bowling in a really attacking fashion. We have seen them take more wickets in the powerplay in the last three games. So we are looking at seeing more of the attacking fast bowling from the likes of Yash Dayal and particularly Siraj who has been outstanding, particularly with his yorkers."
With four games to go in RCB's IPL season, Flower is firmly keeping the faith. "Playoff hopes are still alive and that is a brilliant position, obviously we would have liked to have been much closer to the playoffs than we are but we are still there, the chances are still there and we are still believing," he said.
Meanwhile, captain Faf du Plessis is proud of how his team has shown character and turned things around over the last few matches. "Pressure is always there for performance, that is part of the game. Pressure is there when you are winning as well, you need to perform. For me, the nice thing from a captaincy point of view is that we are playing the style of cricket that we have been wanting to play for long so it is more a happiness that we are doing ourselves justice whereas before, the opposite was happening."
"Proud of the boys and the way they have stood up. It takes a lot of character when you are down in the dumps, so the boys have responded really well and the way they have played the last three games has been really good," Du Plessis said.
There has been some rain in the build-up to tonight's match but coach Flower does not feel it will be a major factor. "The rain has not really changed a lot in our preparation or selection. It is brilliant that Chinnaswamy has such a good drainage system, so I don't think that is a big factor but I do know that Bengaluru needs the water so it is brilliant to have some of this beautiful rain," coach Flower said.
Gujarat Titans Squad: Wriddhiman Saha(w), Shubman Gill(c), Sai Sudharsan, David Miller, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan, Rashid Khan, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Mohit Sharma, Sandeep Warrier, Sharath BR, Vijay Shankar, Manav Suthar, Darshan Nalkande, Matthew Wade, Umesh Yadav, Kane Williamson, Jayant Yadav, Abhinav Manohar, Joshua Little, Kartik Tyagi, Spencer Johnson, Sushant Mishra
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Squad: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green, Dinesh Karthik(w), Swapnil Singh, Karn Sharma, Mohammed Siraj, Yash Dayal, Anuj Rawat, Mahipal Lomror, Himanshu Sharma, Akash Deep, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Reece Topley, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson, Mayank Dagar, Alzarri Joseph, Suyash Prabhudessai, Manoj Bhandage, Saurav Chauhan, Rajan Kumar.