Indian Premier League 21st match: Bangalore Royal Challengers v Deccan Chargers at Bangalore, May 3, 2008

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Indian Premier League 21st match: Bangalore Royal Challengers v Deccan Chargers at Bangalore, May 3, 2008

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Indian Premier League 21st match: Bangalore Royal Challengers v Deccan Chargers at Bangalore, May 3, 2008

Toss Deccan Chargers, who chose to field first
Bangalore Royal Challengers innings  Bangalore 156/8 (20 ov)

Fall of wickets1-13 (Chipli, 1.6 ov), 2-85 (Jaffer, 10.6 ov), 3-102 (Kallis, 12.5 ov), 4-104 (Kohli, 13.2 ov), 5-111 (Misbah-ul-Haq, 14.2 ov), 6-135 (Boucher, 18.3 ov), 7-150 (Kumar, 19.4 ov), 8-156 (Dravid, 19.6 ov) 

It's the tale of two captains under pressure. Rahul Dravid has tried everything - he has opened, moved down the order and come up again but without much success. VVS Laxman, after looking clueless in the initial encounters, is beginning to find some form but he has been unable to convert the starts into substantial scores. The captains' desperation seems to have caught on to the teams. Bangalore should have won against the Chennai Super Kings but choked; they could have won against the Delhi Daredevils but couldn't find that one big over that they desperately needed. Similarly, the Deccan Chargers have had their close encounters. Both teams have registered their solitary wins against fellow-strugglers Mumbai Indians.

If the captains are under similar pressure, the teams, though, couldn't be more different. Deccan were supposed to be the powerhouse team with attacking batsmen while Bangalore had batsmen who had great Test records but were not known for their big hitting. But both set of players have been unable to gel as a unit. In their last two games, Bangalore did seem to find some momentum but were unable to finish off.

Team news

Bangalore are stuck with a problem more than one team has faced in the IPL: which foreign player to play and whom to bench. They have had starting problems, but if they play Shivnarine Chanderpaul, they might not be able to pick Misbah. Jacques Kallis is wanted for his all-round skills, Mark Boucher is the wicketkeeper and you can't drop Dale Steyn. Dravid said that Anil Kumble will replace Sunil Joshi and either J Arun Kumar or Bharat Chipli could get a chance.

Bangalore (likely): 1 Praveen Kumar, 2 Wasim Jaffer, 3 Misbah-ul-Haq, 4 Jacques Kallis, 5 Rahul Dravid (capt), 6 Mark Boucher (wk), 7 Virat Kohli, 8 Zaheer Khan, 9 Dale Steyn, 10 Anil Kumble, 11 R Vinay Kumar.

Deccan came close to playing the aggressive Hyderabad opener Ravi Teja but have chosen to stick with the tried-and-failed Venugopal Rao. There is also Arjun Yadav who could slot into the middler order in place of Rao. The team landed in Bangalore only late on Friday evening and they will have a light practice session on the morning of the match.

Deccan (likely): 1 Adam Gilchrist, 2 VVS Laxman (capt), 3 Hershelle Gibbs, 4 Rohit Sharma, 5 Shahid Afridi, 6 Arjun Yadav, 7, Sanjay Bangar, 8 Nuwan Zoysa, 9 D Kalyankrishna, 10 RP Singh, 11 Pragyan Ojha.

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