Squad tweaks in place, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Sunrisers Hyderabad look to make early gains

Every IPL season, the Royal Challengers Bangalore look like one of the teams to beat on paper. They invariably have plenty of superstars, their supporters are filled with hope and all eyes are fixed on them. So far, there have been 12 seasons without a trophy, though. But the Sunrisers Hyderabad are in some ways the opposite of that. They don't generate as much chatter, but they have been in the playoffs every year since 2016, when they even won the title, before finishing runners-up in 2018.

The Royal Challengers come into this edition having tried to sort the issues that plagued them in the last two seasons: an over-dependence on Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, and leaking runs at the death. Thus, they have added Aaron Finch - who will most likely open the batting for them - and paid a big sum to get allrounder Chis Morris. They also bought back Dale Steyn, who briefly gave their bowling the spark it had been missing in 2019 but was then injured. For the Sunrisers, there were no glaring gaps to plug, and they instead opted to strengthen their squad with smart buys such as Fabian Allen and Abdul Samad, both bought at the base price. The splurging by the Royal Challengers and the more restrained buying by the Sunrisers was again in keeping with the way both teams have operated over the years.

Despite the contrasts, though, when it comes to the battle on the field between these two, things have been very even. Since 2018, they have each won two games against the other, and overall, the Sunrisers hold only a slender 8-6 lead in head-to-head contests. There hasn't been a season where one of these teams has won both league matches against the other. The Sunrisers, of course, won their most important match, beating the Royal Challengers in the 2016 final.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 3 Manish Pandey, 4 Vijay Shankar, 5 Virat Singh, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Khaleel Ahmed, 11 Sandeep Sharma

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Aaron Finch, 2 Devdutt Padikkal, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 AB de Villiers (wk), 5 Moeen Ali, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Navdeep Saini, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal