In less than a week’s time, one of the biggest franchise tournaments will be upon us and the entire Indian cricket fan roster cannot keep their calm. With IPL 2023 banging on the doors, it is time for the fans to try and speculate every possible thing about the teams and what may be their playing XI.
Not only does the speculations are stalling until the playing XI but how the bowling combos will be, how the batting line-ups will be , for whom the foreigners will deliver, they are already doing the heaviest of rounds. Answering one of the perennial questions, here are how the teams in the IPL may line up.
Kolkata Knight Riders
It was a poor season for the s back in 2022. They will have to recover as soon as they can. However, with one of their major architects missing in the form of Shreyas Iyer they will have to bank upon their overseas lot of players to get the job done.
Probable playing XI: Venkatesh Iyer, Litton Das, Nitish Rana, Narayan Jagadeesan, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy
Chennai Super Kings
After lifting the trophy in 2021, their outings in 2022 were downright bad and as things stand, they will need something heroic to bail their season and a messiah who should be delivering big.
Probable playing XI: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Subhransu Senapati, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Ben Stokes, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar, Dwaine Pretorius, Sisanda Magala, Rajvardhan Hangargekar
Mumbai Indians:
Another team that struggled to get off the block in 2022, Mumbai Indians will have a lot of work to be done, particularly after Jasprit Bumrah had to be ruled out due to his stress fracture. His return date is yet unknown and only time shall reveal, who steps up in his place.
Probable playing XI: Ishan Kishan, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Dewald Brevis, Tim David, Cameron Green, Tilak Varma, Ramandeep Singh, Jofra Archer, Hrithik Shokeen, Arjun Tendulkar
Royal Challengers Bangalore:
The Royal Challengers Bangalore were in fine touch in 2022 but then had a few shortcomings of their own that stalled them from advancing to the finale. This year they will try and get the kinks ironed out.
Probable playing XI: Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Shahbaz Ahmed, Dinesh Karthik, Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, Josh Hazlewood
Delhi Capitals:
In the absence of their skipper, it will be interesting to see how Delhi fares. They will have a lot to contemplate but with a string of decent foreign names, they can very well be the title challengers.
Probable playing XI: Prithvi Shaw, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Sarfaraz Khan, Lalit Yadav, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Khaleel Ahmed
Gujarat Titans:
The champions of 2022 will be taking the yard with the belief of adding further sheen to their initial success. However, if there is one thing that history has shown us all, times change and no matter how strong you have been in one season, the following ones become even tougher.
Probable playing XI: Shubman Gill, Sai Sudarshan, Kane Williamson, David Miller, Hardik Pandya, Rahul Tewatia, Srikar Bharat, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph, Shivam Mavi
Lucknow Super Giants:
LSG started on a strong note in the precursor edition of the tournament but somehow started faltering way too frequently in the latter stages and eventually was axed after losing out to RCB in the Eliminator.
Probable playing XI: KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Ayush Badoni, Deepak Hooda, Marcus Stoinis, Krunal Pandya, Krishnappa Gowtham, Romario Shepherd, Daniel Sams, Avesh Khan, Ravi Bishnoi
Rajasthan Royals:
The finalists of the last time had a terrific run, particularly after Jos Buttler went berserk with the bat while returning Yuzvendra Chahal putting up a show with the ball. They will hope to do one better and try and secure the title for the second time.
Probable playing XI: Jos Buttler, Devdutt Padikkal, Sanju Samson, Ravichandran Ashwin, Riyan Parag, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Trent Boult, KM Asif, Murugan Ashwin, Prasidh Krishna
Sunrisers Hyderabad:
It has been a while since the Orange Army has made proper noises and season after season, their woes continue to rise. They will be hoping for a better outing this year at least with a new captain in place.
Probable playing XI: Mayank Agarwal, Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Harry Brook, Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, Glenn Phillips, Washington Sundar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Marco Jansen
Punjab Kings:
A team that tried out the hitting from ball one approach had gone half-way through. They were successful in a few occasions while in others they had their challenges. They will be hoping to create magic in the forthcoming edition.
Probable playing XI: Shikhar Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Jitesh Sharma, Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Singh, Rishi Dhawan, Sam Curran, Rahul Chahar, Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh
