Pune Warriors will be hoping to continue their winning run at home as they host Chennai Super Kings on Saturday in the fifth season of the Indian Premier League. The points table is currently well balanced with teams closely tied and further points will be on the mind of the two teams in action.
Chennai Super Kings scored a seemingly unbelievable victory in their last match against Royal Challengers Bangalore, winning off the final ball in a high-scoring thriller. Chasing a mammoth 206 to win, they looked certain to lose before Albie Morkel changed the scenario in the penultimate over, striking 28 runs.
That was all the contribution that came from him, but him doing it in just seven balls made all the difference. Faf du Plessis finally got going with a well-paced 71 while captain MS Dhoni will also be pleased with his own return to form, scoring 41 runs off 24 balls. With the ball, Doug Bollinger did well despite the pitch being batsmen-friendly as Chennai look to streamline their campaign back on track.
Pune Warriors lost their first match this season with a defeat against Kings XI Punjab, the latter avenging their defeat earlier. A batting collapse saw them getting all out for 115 and rendered them out of chance to put up a fight as they fell to Dimitri Mascarenhas’ seemingly harmless medium pacers.
Warriors saw their batting struggle for the second time in three matches, and captain Sourav Ganguly will need to have plans in place to overcome such a situation from repeating. With Marlon Samuels and Angelo Mathews in the line-up, improvements can be expected while Jesse Ryder is a hit-or-miss gamble that the team is willing to take.
Ashok Dinda will be relied upon with the ball, ably supported by Ashish Nehra. Of course what both of them will need is a much better effort in the field, a complaint that Nehra had at the end of their previous game.
The match starts at 8.00pm local time.