Royal Challengers Bengaluru Captain Rajat Patidar recovered from the finger injury and is eligible to play against Sunrisers Hyderabad, head coach Andy Flower confirmed on Thursday 22 May. Patidar suffered a finger injury and opposed Chennai Super Kings 3. May.
However, the forced break on May 8 and the tournament overparted it gave him the time he needed to recover. Patidar was seen before restarting the tournament to protect the wounded finger.
“Rajat Patidar, for one, gave his right hand a little time to settle after getting a pretty bad knock. So he’s eligible for the bat, which is great,” Flower said.
RCB did not play the match for almost 20 days. It was scheduled to face the Knight Riders at home on May 17 – Official Restart IPL 2025 – but this game was washed out by rain at the M. Chinnaswama stadium in Bengalur.
“A break will not be the momentum of RCB”
The flower stressed that a long break would not hurt RCB movements. Instead, they believe that it helped improve the mental space of players and help recover in what was difficult.
“We don’t care much about it (break). I think the boys worked really well for the whole season and played a great cricket all the time. Yes, a little breaks, but for a few of our players it was actually a healthy thing,” Flower said at a press conference before the match.
RCB will now play all its remaining matches, including knockouts, away from home. But Flower was confident and pointed to the excellent team record on the road this season – six wins from six matches.
RCBs were originally scheduled to play SRH at the M. Chinnaswama stadium, but the match was moved to Lucknow because of the unfavorable weather forecast in Bengalur.
“We are obviously disappointed that we are not playing tomorrow’s game in Bengalur. As you know, we initially fought in our home conditions and took us a while to modify our game plan to the playground. But we adjusted and won some important games at home.
RCB opponents, SRH, have already been excluded from the play -off race. They are based on a strong victory against LSG – a match that was played in the same place, at the Ekana stadium.
Published:
Kingshuk Kusari
Published on:
23 May 2025
