Internet Desk: The Rising Pune Supergiant who are in some tremendous form at the current moment will look to finalize their spot in the play offs when they take on Delhi Daredevils who are currently lying stagnant at the bottom half of the table.
Pune have established themselves as a dominant team alongside table toppers Mumbai after they have been successful in winning seven of their last eight games.
If Punjab looses to Mumbai then Supergiant will automatically be in the play offs before they face Delhi.
Supergiants would want to win their upcoming match as they lost their home match against Delhi by a huge margin of 97 runs.
It is all clicking for them at the right time. Their batting did not fire in the last game but their bowlers were able to defend 148 against Sunrisers Hyderabad with medium pacer Jaydev Unadkat taking a five-wicket haul including a hat-trick.
Unadkat has so far taken 17 wickets at an average of 14 while Supergiant’s leading wicket-taker has been leggie Imran Tahir, who has picked up 18 wickets at 20.50.
They take on an inconsistent Daredevils, who pulled off a dramatic two-wicket win over Gujarat Lions yesterday, courtesy a Shreyas Iyer special.
The team, which is out of the play-off race, is keen to make the most of their remaining two games in the competition.
The result in Kanpur showed Daredevils could have got a lot more out of their campaign if they had won more key moments in the previous outings. One day they were chasing 200 plus targets with ease and on another day, they were being bowled for less than 70.
Their talented batting line-up comprising Iyer, Karun Nair, Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant have not been able to fire consistently as a unit, leading to their downfall.
Even captain Zaheer Khan was at pains to explain Daredevils’ erratic performance this season after a sensational win over Lions in Kanpur.
Champions Trophy bound Mohammed Shami’s performance in the remaining games will be keenly watched as he has not been at his best after returning from injury.
Teams (from):
Delhi Daredevils: Zaheer Khan (C), Angelo Mathews, Corey Anderson, Kagiso Rabada, Pat Cummins, Ankit Bawne, Aditya Tare, Murugan Ashwin, Navdeep Saini, Shashank Singh, Mohammed Shami, Shahbaz Nadeem, Jayant Yadav, Amit Mishra, Shreyas Iyer, Sanju Samson, Chris Morris, Carlos Brathwaite, Karun Nair, Rishabh Pant, Chama Milind, Khaleel Ahmed, Pratyush Singh, Marlon Samuels.
Rising Pune Supergiant: Steve Smith (C), Ajinkya Rahane, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Ashok Dinda, Mayank Agarwal, Faf du Plessis, Ankit Sharma, Baba Aparajith, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Deepak Chahar, Rahul Chahar, Dan Christian, Lockie Ferguson, Imran Tahir, Jaskaran Singh, Usman Khawaja, Saurabh Kumar, Ben Stokes, Washington Sundar, Milind Tandon, Manoj Tiwary, Adam Zampa, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishwar Pandey, Rahul Tripathi and Shardul Thakur.