‘Phir rote rehna’: RCB called out for desperate decision to drop Mohammed Siraj and Glenn Maxwell

Glenn Maxwell and Mohammed Siraj faced the axe by RCB for the SRH clash.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru made the desperate decision to get back to winning ways as they dropped their leader of pace attack Mohammed Siraj and all-rounder Glenn Maxwell from the playing XI for the mega clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad. RCB, who are languishing at the bottom of the table, made big changes in the XI for the Monday clash at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.

Siraj, who is one of the contenders to get a place in India’s T20 WC squad, failed to live up to the expectations in IPL 2024 thus far and has picked just 4 wickets in 6 matches at an economy rate of 10.41. The paceman struggled in the shortest format and suffered hammering in the last match against Mumbai Indians as he gave away 37 runs in three matches and remained wicketless.

Meanwhile, Maxwell has also been going through a lean patch with the bat this season. The flamboyant RCB all-rounder has scored just 32 runs in 6 innings and with the ball he has claimed four wickets. He has failed to add value to the RCB’s batting line-up which is relying heavily on Virat Kohli. In the last three matches, he registered a couple of ducks which put him in the firing line.

Also Read | Sunil Gavaskar blasts RCB’s Glenn Maxwell for his struggle against fast bowling: ‘Naam bade par darshan chote’

The fans on X, formerly known as Twitter, reacted to RCB’s decision to bench Maxwell and Siraj for the crucial clash.

RCB skipper Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bowl against SRH on their return to M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Right-arm paceman Lockie Ferguson received his debut cap from Siraj who faced the axe in the match.

“We are going to have a chase. It has been the same throughout the season. It’s been a bit slower. We haven’t played our best cricket. Feels like most of the times we haven’t played to our full potential. We have made changes to see if we can turn it around. Maxwell is sitting out, Siraj is sitting out. Ferguson is coming in,” Du Plessis said at the toss.

SRH skipper Pat Cummins will go into the contest with an unchanged side.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru playing XI: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Will Jacks, Rajat Patidar, Saurav Chauhan, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Mahipal Lomror, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Reece Topley, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal.

Sunrisers Hyderabad playing XI: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan.

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