In the 31st game of the Indian Premier League, the Pune Warriors India will play the Chennai Super Kings. The two teams had met in a game at Chennai on Monday and now play at the Dr. DY Patil in Navi Mumbai.
Pune v Chennai odds:
With three wins from six games, Chennai (7/10 at
Bodog) have been inconsistent in this tournament but where they have been helped is that most of the other sides, save Mumbai, have been equally bad. They will go into this game with a win over Pune (6/5 at
bet365) in the last game that they played. The loss for the Warriors means that they now have lost three in a row after having won the first two. Chennai should be favourites to drill home their fourth victory of the tournament.
Ground and Pitch:
The game will be played at Pune’s adopted home ground at the Dr DY Patil in Navi Mumbai. The pitch has been true at the ground and the ball should come on to the bat. Since this is a day game, there shouldn’t be too much issue with the dew either.
Player News
Michael Hussey (11/4 at
bet365) won the man of the match in the previous game that the two sides had played at Chennai. It was his half-century that had taken the side to a modest total but in a game where the next highest was 34, he deserved his award. He has been the form-player for the Super Kings.
The one who hasn’t been in the best of touches though, is Suresh Raina (9/2 at
BetFred), who has scored only 119 runs in six games. The captain has reposed faith in him by sending Raina at the number three position in each of the game and the time has come for the batsman to repay the captain back. Murali Vijay’s (7/2 at
Coral) inabilities to convert the starts into something bigger are also hurting the side.
Pune has similar issues with their batting. On paper, they looked like they had the strongest batting line-up after Mumbai but none of the top-order has got going; Yuvraj Singh (6/1 at
bet365) and Jesse Ryder (10/3 at
bet365) have 129 and 135 runs respectively in the tournament so far. Graeme Smith’s (4/1 at
BetFred) injury hasn’t helped, nor did the ban imposed on Manish Pandey (5/1 at
Blue Square), which means that the Pune Warriors are struggling with three losses in a row.
Prediction:
While Chennai go into the game as favourites, Yuvraj had exhibited some signs of getting back into form in the previous game. The timing was still awry for him what was good to see was that he was prepared to grit it out in the middle.
