The Pune Warriors India will play the Deccan Chargers in the 62nd game of the Indian Premier League on Monday. The match, which will be played at the Dr. DY Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai, will be the first game of the last week of the league games this season.
Pune v Deccan odds:
The two sides are all but out from the race to get to the playoffs. Pune (4/6 at
Blue Square) have eight points from 11 games and even if they win all their games, they will end on 14. That may not be enough to get them through to the next round. The Warriors had begun the tournament with two wins before losing seven in a row, but now have two wins again.
The Chargers (5/4 at
BetFred), on the other hand, can garner a maximum of 12 points only and can only look to boost their deflated egos by surprising some of the more fancied sides – like they did to the Mumbai Indians.
Ground and Pitch:
The pitch at the Dr. DY Patil Stadium has always been helpful for the pace bowlers who can extract some bounce out of it.
Player News:
The Pune Warriors India welcomed the return of Sourav Ganguly (5/1 at
Coral) in the previous game and he repaid their faith with a run-a-ball, unbeaten 32. It helped his side clinch the game and the task will now get easier for him – as he looks to shrug off the rust from not being a part of competitive cricket for a long enough time.
The Warriors were, however, helped even before Ganguly came to the crease in the previous by a flier from Jesse Ryder (3/1 at
Blue Square). Ryder, much like in the previous games, got off to a flier but failed to covert his 35 (20 balls) into something more monumental. Manish Pandey (4/1 at
Blue Square) was slow off the blocks but played his part to perfection at the top of the order.
The Chargers were assisted by the batting of the lower-order in the previous game. Kumar Sangakkara (10/3 at
Stan James) at the top and Daniel Christian (12/1 at
Stan James) in the middle have continued to not get as many as they would have liked from themselves. However, the Chargers will hope that Michael Lumb (4/1 at
Blue Square) will be able to justify his selection in the side after his second ball duck against the Mumbai Indians.
Cameron White (13/2 at bet365) may continue to remain out of the playing eleven.
Prediction:
Nothing to choose from between the two sides, although, Pune’s resurrection would make him put my money on them.