IPL 2018: Daniel Vettori wary of Chris Gayle's strength

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) have had contrasting fortunes in their opening game. While RCB were thumped by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Eden Gardens, Punjab annihilated the Delhi Daredevils (DD) at the PCA Stadium in Mohali. The teams would now be locking horns at the iconic M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

Meanwhile, Chris Gayle, who played for the Challengers for the previous seven seasons, is now a part of the Punjab franchise. Though after Punjab’s victorious, Gayle is unlikely to feature in the playing eleven, Daniel Vettori, the head coach of RCB doesn’t want to be complacent and has accordingly planned to stop the hulk-like Jamaican cricketer.

“We can handle him”- Vettori on Chris Gayle

“We probably won’t anticipate playing against Chris tomorrow. But if he does, if any team knows how good he is that is RCB and what he has done for the team for a number of years. We are fully aware of his strengths and how we can handle him,” Vettori was quoted as saying by sportzwiki.com.

KL Rahul also played for RCB last season and performed decently for them. However, he was released by the franchise and was bagged by Punjab for a whopping INR 11 crores and he justified his value with a stupendous half-century against Gautam Gambhir’s men. Vettori also sounded confident about tackling the belligerence of Rahul, who will be playing in front of his home crowd today at Bengaluru.

“KL is obviously in fantastic form in the first game and he knows these conditions. He missed all last year for us, it was sad not to see him perform (play at all) but he has gone away to KXIP and started exceptionally well. Hopefully, we can tackle him well,” the former Kiwi spinner added.

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Here is the updated squad of RCB

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