The news was confirmed by RCB skipper Rajat Patidar during the coin toss.
The Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have opted to rest their England all-rounder Liam Livingstone for the match against the Punjab Kings (PBKS) today in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL 2025).
The news was confirmed by RCB skipper Rajat Patidar during the coin toss. In his place, RCB have decided to bring in Romario Shepherd.
Shepherd, who was picked up by the Bengaluru outfit for INR 1.50 crores at the auction, will play his first match of the season.
The reason behind the move is to counter to power-packed PBKS batting order through the middle overs and get breakthroughs. Furthermore, RCB already have two spinners in their ranks with Krunal Pandya and Suyash Sharma.
Also, that RCB had opted to bowl, Romario’s big-hitting abilities might be required during the chase.
Speaking about Livingstone’s numbers, he has played all the games for RCB so far until today. However, his performance hasn’t really made much of an impact with just two wickets and 87 runs at an average of 17.40 including a fifty. This also attributed to him getting dropped against PBKS today as RCB wanted to try out Shepherd in the role.
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Punjab Kings (PBKS Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Shreyas Iyer(c), Josh Inglis(w), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal
Impact Subs: Harpreet Brar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Suryansh Shedge, Glenn Maxwell, Praveen Dubey
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB Playing XI): Philip Salt, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar(c), Jitesh Sharma(w), Tim David, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Suyash Sharma, Josh Hazlewood, Yash Dayal
Impact Subs: Devdutt Padikkal, Rasikh Dar Salam, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethell, Swapnil Singh
(More to follow)
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