IPL: 3 active players to play for both SRH and RCB in league history

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will be taking on Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the 30th match of the ongoing IPL 2024 (Indian Premier League). Both teams share a good rivalry in the league. Notably, SRH have caused upsets to RCB, probably more than any team in the league. In the 2016 final, the Hyderbad-based franchise beat Bengaluru in the final by 8 runs. In the IPL 2019, the Orange Army franchise pipped the Bengaluru-based franchise by just a point to make it to the playoffs. In the IPL 2020, SRH beat RCB in the Eliminator to proceed further in the league.

In the IPL 2021, SRH cost RCB a top-2 finish by beating them in Abu Dhabi. In the IPL 2022, SRH dismissed RCB to their second-lowest total of 68 runs in the history of the league. The 2016 runner-ups would be hoping to turn things around this time by putting up a good performance. RCB is currently in turmoil having lost 4 of their 5 games. Over the years, there have been some great players who have played for both RCB and SRH. Some of them are established and others are emerging.

Here are 3 such players who have played for both SRH and RCB in the IPL history:

3. KL Rahul

KL Rahul might be an unexpected name on the list. The prime reason is that not many know that he played for both Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad franchises before joining PBKS. The Karnataka-born started his IPL career with RCB in 2013 and was picked by SRH in 2014 and 2015 before returning to RCB in 2016. For SRH, Rahul was not that good. In 16 innings for Hyderabad, the star batter scored 308 runs at a batting average of 23.69, at a batting strike rate of just 106.21, with 34 being his best score to his name. Rahul's best performance as a batter came for PBKS. 

The star batter played 55 matches for the 2014 finalists and scored ,2548 runs at a batting average of 56.62, at a batting strike rate of 139.77 including two hundreds. The right-handed batter is the leading run-scorer for PBKS. He has the most hundreds, fifties, and boundaries while playing for the side. His 132* is the best score for a batter from PBKS in the history of the league. Rahul scored 50 runs in 15 balls, which is the joint second-fastest fifty in the history of the IPL.