Virat Kohli has made a captaincy return for RCB for their IPL 2023 clash against Punjab Kings on Thursday, 20th April. Kohli had given up the RCB captaincy before the IPL 2022 season.
In Short
- Kohli has relinquished RCB captaincy ahead of the IPL 2022 season
- Kohli revealed that Faf du Plessis would be playing the match as an Impact Player
- Kohli said that RCB is taking things one game at a time
: Virat Kohli returned to captaincy for RCB in their match against PBKS on Thursday, 20th April.
Kohli had given up the captaincy of the franchise ahead of the 2022 season, with Faf du Plessis being bought in the auction to take up the role. However, ahead of the PBKS game, the Indian star had returned as the captain of the side.The star batter has been in top form with the bat this season, as he has already scored three fifties this season.
The toss was won by PBKS on Thursday and Sam Curran decided to field first. Kohli received a huge ovation on his return to captaincy and revealed the reason behind taking up the role once again.As quoted by Cricbuzz, Kohli revealed that Du Plessis would be playing as an Impact Player as he couldn’t take the field due to his rib injury suffered during the match against CSK. The star batter said RCB weren’t disappointed in losing the toss as they wanted to bat first in the clash.
Kohli said that RCB is taking things one game at a time.
“Faf potentially can’t be fielding today, so he’ll be playing as a impact player, switching with Vyshak. We got to do what we wanted, we would have batted first, the pitch could get slow, some scruff marks will help the bowlers going deep into the game. Taking one game at a time, focussing on our own game, make the most of crunch situations, we haven’t gone that so far in the tournament. No other changes for us,” said Kohli.
The playing lineups for both teams are as follows:
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Virat Kohli(c), Faf du Plessis, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Maxwell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik(w), Wanindu Hasaranga, Suyash Prabhudessai, Harshal Patel, Wayne Parnell, Mohammed Siraj.
Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Atharva Taide, Matthew Short, Harpreet Singh Bhatia, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Nathan Ellis, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh.
PBKS impact substitutes – Prabhsimran Singh, Mohit Rathee, Shivam Singh, Rishi Dhawan, Sikandar Raza.
RCB impact substitutes – Vyshak Vijaykumar, David Willey, Karm Sharma, Akash Deep, Anuj Rawat.