IPL 2018: How Virat Kohli's men might feature in their season opener

Bowlers (Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Siraj and Yuzvendra Chahal)

This is going to be an important tournament for Umesh Yadav. With the likes of Jaspreet Bumrah, Shardul Thakur and Jaydev Unadkat making their way into India's limited overs squad, Umesh Yadav needs to up his game and prove his worth as an able limited overs bowler. Umesh Yadav is a wicket-taking bowler, which sometimes hampers his economy rate. Umesh Yadav will have to lead the pace attack for the RCB.

Mohammad Siraj will get a nod in the playing XI despite his recent dismal performances. Virat Kohli has shown faith in Siraj and he will be feeling pressure to deliver. Mohammad Siraj showed his heroics, last year, playing for SRH. He just needs one good game to get going again.

When we say, in the past few years, RCB has had a mediocre bowling attack, we certainly are excluding this young man. The leg-spinner has been the peak of RCB's bowling attack in the recent times, and, therefore, was acquired back by the team in the Auctions. Yuzvendra Chahal will be Virat's go-to bowler in the times of crisis. This time around, the leg-spinner will get an equally adept partner in the form of Washington Sundar. It would be interesting to see the spin-twin reigning supreme over the opposition.

Overall, RCB looks good to be considered one of the serious contenders for the title this year. Although there are some grey areas like Finishers and Death bowling, they have a good bench strength to tackle these issues as the tournament progresses.