Ipl Match:
RPS vs GL, 25th Match, Indian Premier League, 2016
Date schedule:
Friday, April 29, 2016
Time schedule:
02:30 PM GMT
Venue schedule:
Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune
Their campaign back on track after a victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad, a rejuvenated Rising Pune Supergiants now face an uphill task of taming the rampaging Gujarat Lions in an IPL clash in Pune on Friday.
After a comprehensive win over defending champions Mumbai Indians in the tournament-opener, Pune suffered four losses on the trot before a win over Hyderabad via Duckworth-Lewis method last Tuesday gave them a new lease of life and the Debutantes will look to continue the positive run.
However, standing in their way are the Lions, who have been in red-hot form this season. With five wins in six matches, they are the table-toppers, who have crushed all opponents apart from the Sunrisers. In fact, Pune too were in their firing line early in the tournament when the Lions had beaten them by seven wickets at Rajkot and the Supergiants will be itching to extract revenge on Friday.
The Lions have depended on their batting trio of Aaron Finch, Brendon McCullum and skipper Suresh Raina to score runs in this IPL. Though Finch's fitness is a concern for Gujarat but Dwayne Smith has proved to be a good replacement so far and blasted a 30-ball 52 last night against Delhi Daredevils in only his second match this IPL.
For Pune, the opening duo of Ajinkya Rahane and Faf du Plessis have been the top run-scorers with 223 and 206 runs respectively so far in the tournament. But the latter has been ruled out of the remaining due to a finger injury.
Steven Smith and Mahendra Singh Dhoni need to fire if the Supergiants have to post a huge score or chase down a big target as it is likely to be a high-scoring game at the Maharashtra Cricket Association stadium in Pune.
The spin-pace duo of Murugan Ashwin and Thisara Perera have done the bulk of the damage for his team, picking up 7 and 6 wickets respectively so far, and the onus will be on them to earn Pune early breakthroughs.
All eyes will also be on pacer Ashok Dinda, who grabbed three wickets in the only match he played in the tournament so far against Hyderabad. Top India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has been off-colour so far and he needs to step up if Pune has to go further ahead in the event.
Match Prediction: Gujarat Lions Win
Rising Pune Supergiants Squad:
Ankit Sharma, Baba Aparajith, Murugan Ashwin, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Scott Boland, Deepak Chahar, MS Dhoni, Ashok Dinda, Faf du Plessis, Peter Handscomb, Jaskaran Singh Singh, Mitchell Marsh, Albie Morkel, Ishwar Pandey, Irfan Pathan, Thisara Perera, Kevin Pietersen, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma, RP Singh, Steven Smith, Saurabh Tiwary, Adam Zampa
Gujarat Lions Squad:
Dwayne Bravo, Paras Dogra, Eklavya Dwivedi, James Faulkner, Aaron Finch, Ishan Kishan, Ravindra Jadeja, Shadab Jakati, Dinesh Karthik, Shival Kaushik, Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar, Sarabjit Ladda, Brendon McCullum, Amit Mishra, Akshdeep Nath, Suresh Raina, Pradeep Sangwan, Jaydev Shah, Umang Sharma, Dwayne Smith, Dale Steyn, Pravin Tambe, Andrew Tye
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