Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) pacer Mark Wood has had a sensational start to Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 season with 8 wickets 2 matches – including a five-wicket haul in their first game of the season. Wood was, however, left out for the last match in Lucknow against Sunrisers Hyderabad last week after failing to recover from flu. But with their next match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Bengaluru on Monday, KL Rahul might be tempted to bring back his premier pacer.


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England fast bowler Wood has the capability of bowling at over 90mph and can rattle the likes Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell with his pace. West Indies all-rounder Romario Shepherd, who replaced Wood in the last game, also failed to fire with the bat scoring a duck.


South African opener Quinton de Kock was also left out against SRH as his replacement Kyle Mayers has been in fine form with the bat. With Mayers firing at the top in the first three games – scoring at a strike-rate of 187.83 – LSG haven’t missed the services of De Kock. They will prefer to continue with Nicholas Pooran and Marcus Stoinis in the middle-order.


Sri Lanka all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga, who was one of the top wicket-takers for RCB in IPL 2022, is expected to finally arrive in Bengaluru on Monday. Hasaranga has been taking part in three-match T20I series against New Zealand and has flown to India after the series. It remains to be seen if Faf du Plessis will blood Hasaranga straight away into the side after RCB bowlers leaked plenty of runs in the second-half of the innings against KKR.


South African Wayne Parnell has replaced Reece Topley but with David Willey bowling impressively against KKR, the Bangalore side may look to continue with the same option. LSG will continue to miss the services of Avesh Khan, who is yet to recover from injury.



Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Lucknow Super Giants IPL 2023 Predicted Playing 11


Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis (c), Suyash Prabhudessai, Glenn Maxwell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Wanindu Hasaranga/Michael Bracewell, David Willey, Karn Sharma, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj


Lucknow Super Giants: KL Rahul (c), Kyle Mayers, Quinton de Kock/Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Krunal Pandya, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Ayush Badoni, Romario Shepherd/Mark Wood, Yash Thakur, Ravi Bishnoi, Jaydev Unadkat