Match 13 Preview: In form Rajasthan Royals (62%) all set against struggling Pune Warriors (38%)

By Amar Dani On April 11, 2013

Struggling Pune Warriors, with a question mark hanging over the fitness of their impact player Yuvraj Singh, cross swords with high-flying Rajasthan Royals in the Pepsi IPL clash at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium today at 20:00 hours.

The Warriors have lost two matches on the trot by putting up a dismal batting performance while the Royals will win their first three matches of the season if they win this match.

Pune Warriors having no problem in the batting line up, are still left behind in the some quality players in it but for whatever reason it hasn’t fired yet and it needs to do that pretty soon. Their bowling attack has performed well in the tournament thus far and there’s no reason why that won’t continue here.

Yuvraj pulled out of Pune`s first home game on April 7 against Kings XI Punjab at the eleventh hour, after flopping in their campaign opener in Hyderabad against new outfit Sun Risers, complaining of a sore back. Not only was Yuvraj missed as a main middle-order batsman, the Warriors were also handicapped without his clever left-arm spin bowling in the middle overs against Punjab.

The Warriors would be eager to get such a key player back on the park at the earliest after suffering successive defeats

Rajasthan Royals blasted the Kolkata Knight Riders out of town in their last match and their win here shall move them to the top of the table and maintain their 100% record. Ajinkya Rahane, Brad Hodge and Rahul Dravid all look in good form with the bat which is good while their seam bowling options all contributed last time out and look a very good group. Samuel Badree could come back in if the wicket shows signs of turning.

Skipper Rahul Dravid has shown good touch with a half century against the Daredevils while Ajinkya Rahane has chipped in with useful scores.

Stuart Binny and Dravid have shown all round prowesses a bit and the Royals would be quite pleased with the superb stints of pacers Kevon Cooper in both the matches. With temperamental S Sreesanth, slinger Shaun Tait and Sidharth Trivedi, who bagged three wickets in the game against Knight Riders, also in the mix, Royals have a good pace armoury.

But the Royals need take into account to complete the overs quickly as Dravid will be in even bigger trouble after copping a fine of USD 20,000 for his bowlers not maintaining the required over-rate against the Knight Riders.


Share this
Twitter   Facebook   Instagram  
Match Score

Matches

Fetching data, please wait ....

Download CSV   


Connect with us
Twitter   Facebook   Instagram