Former opener and celebrated commentator Aakash Chopra has revealed the ideal starting XIs for all eight teams competing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020. (More Cricket News)
The tournament has been moved out of India to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to the coronavirus pandemic and starts with a mouth-watering Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings match at Abu Dhabi on September 19.
But it remains the world's premier T20 league, featuring the biggest stars sans Pakistanis and has been a cricket spectacle every year since its inception in 2008. So, how each outfit lineup matters. Stakes are never this high -- the preparations, thousands of COVID-19 tests, the biddings...
With that here's how each team should line-up -- the starting XIs, according to Chopra:
Note: Each team may not name more than 4 Overseas players (as defined in the IPL Player Regulations) in its starting eleven for any match.
Chennai Super Kings: Shane Watson (overseas), Ambati Rayudu, Faf du Plessis (overseas), MS Dhoni (c & wk), Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo (overseas), Piyush Chawla, Imran Tahir/Mitchell Santner (overseas) and Shardul Thakur.
ALSO READ: Chennai Super Kings - Schedule And Squad
Delhi Capitals: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Shimron Hetmyer (overseas), Alex Carey (overseas), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Sandeep Lamichhane (overseas), Kagiso Rabada (overseas) and Ishant Sharma.
ALSO READ: Delhi Capitals - Schedule And Squad
Kings XI Punjab: KL Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Sarfaraz Khan, Nicholas Pooran (overseas), Glenn Maxwell (overseas), Deepak Hooda, Chris Jordan (overseas), Krishnappa Gowtham, Mujeeb Ur Rahman (overseas), Ravi Bishnoi and Mohammed Shami.
ALSO READ: Kings XI Punjab - Schedule And Squad
Kolkata Knight Riders: Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine (overseas), Nitish Rana, Dinesh Karthik (c & wk), Eoin Morgan (overseas), Andre Russell (overseas), Rinku Singh/ Siddhesh Lad/Rahul Tripathi, Pat Cummins (overseas), Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi/Kamlesh and Nagarkoti/Sandeep Warrier.
ALSO READ: Kolkata Knight Riders - Schedule And Squad
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk, overseas), Ishan Kishan, Surya Kumar Yadav, Kieron Pollard (overseas), Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Nathan Coulter-Nile (overseas), Trent Boult (overseas) and Rahul Chahar.
ALSO READ: Mumbai Indians - Schedule And Squad
Rajasthan Royals: Jos Buttler (wk, overseas), Yashavi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, Steve Smith (c, overseas), Ben Stokes (overseas), Robin Uthappa, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Jofra Archer (overseas), Jaydev Unadkat and Ankit Kapoor/Kartik Tyagi.
ALSO READ: Rajasthan Royals - Schedule And Squad
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Aaron Finch (overseas), Devdutt Padikkal/Parthiv Patel (wk), Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers (overseas), Moeen Ali (overseas), Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Chris Morris (overseas), Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini and Umesh Yadav/Mohammed Siraj.
SunRisers Hyderabad: Jonny Bairstow (wk, overseas), David Warner (c, overseas), Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Virat Singh, Priyam Garg/Abhishek Sharma/Abdul Samad, Mohammad Nabi (overseas), Rashid Khan (overseas), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Siddarth Kaul/Sandeep Sharma.
ALSO READ: SunRisers Hyderabad - Schedule And Squad
