New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) Mo Bobat, the Director of Cricket in Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), said skipper Rajat Patidar has been doing well in recovering from a finger injury and has picked up the bat again, while keeping their fingers crossed on Josh Hazlewood, who is just taking things on a day-by-day basis to heal from a shoulder niggle.

RCB are primed to enter the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 playoffs after securing eight wins in 11 matches, and need just one more win to confirm their spot in the last four stage. RCB will resume their IPL 2025 campaign against defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at their home venue, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, on Saturday.

“Rajat’s going well. He had an injury to his hand, but he’s been building up ever so slowly. For him personally, probably the disruption gave him a few more days just to get through some of that early healing, and for the swelling to go down, and for him to get used to picking up a bat again. He’s practiced the last few days, and he’s going well.”

“With Josh, he’s our only player not here at the moment. He’s recovering from his shoulder niggle that he had. He’s doing that with Cricket Australia. Our medical team and their medical teams have been liaising on what that detail looks like, and he’s just taking that day by day, and he’s trying to improve his shot,” said Bobat in the pre-match press conference on Friday.

Before the tournament was suspended for a week due to cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan, RCB had roped in India batter Mayank Agarwal as a replacement for Devdutt Padikkal, whose campaign ended due to a hamstring injury. Padikkal’s absence also means RCB doesn’t have a left-handed batter in the top order, but Bobat didn’t show much concern about it.

“My own personal philosophy is that I don’t worry that much about right and left-hand combinations. I know different teams view that differently. I think that since we’ve had the impact player rule and every team has six or seven bowlers, it almost doesn’t matter if you’ve got right and left-handers. It just changes the bowling combination.”

“I think in an 11 vs 11 line-up, sometimes having that left-hander in your batting order can mean that you can put one of their bowlers under pressure. I see that less as a thing now. We’ve seen so many times during this competition that a certain bowler type hasn’t bowled their overs because there was a left-hander at the crease, and they just get through fine.”

“I don’t focus on that too much. We’re quite clear on our pattern of play and the things that we want to focus on. It’s obviously advantageous to have some left-handers if you’ve got a short boundary one side or something like that, but it’s not a huge area of concern for me.”

Saturday’s match could be affected by rain, if the weather forecasts are to go by, and Bobat admitted that it’s been on their mind, as seen from them practising in the afternoon on Friday.

“It certainly does influence our preparation. We’ve deliberately practised in the afternoon because we were concerned about rain this evening. Those things you can control. When you get to game day, you can’t control it. You want your players to feel as clear and relaxed as possible.”

“You trust them to make decisions in the moment, regardless of what happens. We don’t overthink any of those things. If the game is rain-affected, it’s rain-affected. It’s not something any of us controls, so we don’t really think too much about that, but it might influence our preparation. Hopefully, for the fans and everybody, we get to play our game because all we want to do is play well and put on a bit of a show.”

–IANS

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