{"id":147849,"date":"2026-03-27T12:07:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=147849"},"modified":"2026-03-27T12:07:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:37:18","slug":"ipl-2026-rcb-coach-flower-confirms-hazlewood-will-miss-season-opener-against-srh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=147849","title":{"rendered":"IPL 2026: RCB coach Flower confirms Hazlewood will miss season-opener against SRH"},"content":{"rendered":"


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As Royal Challengers Bengaluru prepares to go up against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2026 opener here on Saturday, head coach Andy Flower looked back at\u00a0fond memories from its maiden title run last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe franchise worked hard for many years to get that star on our shirts. That was embodied most in Virat\u2019s commitment to the franchise over such a long period of time,\u201d Flower said at the pre-match press conference here on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is now 2026, and we are looking forward to this season\u2019s challenge,\u201d Flower said.<\/p>\n

Flower drew a comparison between long-serving RCB stalwart Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: IPL 2026: Indian contingent leads the way as overseas players allure fades<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was playing, I used to enjoy watching Sachin practise. The same goes here (with Kohli). I really enjoy watching masters of their art do their thing. Virat looks on top of his game. He looks very fit, very lean, very hungry. Watching him time and strike the ball in training – I think he\u2019s at the peak of his powers,\u201d Flower said.<\/p>\n

The former Zimbabwe captain stated that Hazlewood will not feature in Saturday\u2019s outing. \u201cHe won\u2019t be ready for tomorrow; he\u2019s just got off the plane. We\u2019ll be monitoring his fitness very closely, and we are looking forward to him making his entrance into the IPL,\u201d Flower said.<\/p>\n

The 57-year-old termed the \u2018Impact Player\u2019 rule as an \u201cinteresting addition\u201d to the sport. \u201cTactically it\u2019s quite an interesting addition. I must say though that one of the things I love about cricket is the challenges you have in balancing your eleven. It\u2019s one of the things that makes selection a little bit tricky. The Impact Player rule hides that selection problem a little,\u201d Flower said.<\/p>\n

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With Yash Dayal and Josh Hazlewood out of action, RCB banks on uncapped Indian seamers to come good. \u201cWe have Mangesh (Yadav), Abhinandan (Singh) and Rasikh (Salam) all competing for a place. I\u2019m not going to tell you now who\u2019s playing, but we\u2019re happy with recruiting Mangesh to replace Yash Dayal. We\u2019re also happy with Abhinandan\u2019s progress. Rasik is a better bowler than he was last year,\u201d RCB head coach Andy Flower said.<\/p>\n

\nRCB is hopeful that it can reverse its poor recent record on its home ground, the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. \u201cWe lost our first three matches here at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium last year. We did learn from those experiences. Conditions might be slightly different in this first game. I think the salient point is that at your home venue you should be able to have a better understanding about the nuances of the conditions than your opposition,\u201d Flower said.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Published on Mar 27, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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As Royal Challengers Bengaluru prepares to go up against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2026 opener here on Saturday, head coach Andy Flower looked back at\u00a0fond memories from its maiden title run last season. \u201cThe franchise worked hard for many years to get that star on our shirts. That was embodied most in Virat\u2019s commitment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":147850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PTI05_26_2025_000373A.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-CsF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/147850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}