April 11 2013: Match 13 of Pepsi IPL 2013 will feature a battle between two teams with contrasting fortunes. Pune Warriors India, who’ve lost their first two matches and lie at the bottom of the table, play host to the Rajasthan Royals who’ve won two out of two and are sitting pretty in the top half of the table.
A very good team on paper, the Pune Warriors haven’t quite got their act together. The team failed to chase down 126 and suffered an embarrassing 22-run defeat in their opening match at home. Things went from bad to worse in the second game when, sans Yuvraj Singh, they batted out their entire 20 overs but only managed to post 99 runs on the board. Robin Uthappa, Marlon Samuels, Ross Taylor and Angelo Mathews have reputations of being very dangerous batsmen; but between them, they’ve only managed to contribute 97 runs in two matches and that has hurt the team big time. Having lost two matches, they will want to get their first points on the board and they have a good chance of doing so when they play this home fixture.
It's a surprise why Steve Smith, who was one of their players to shine and topped the batting average with a 40-plus figure in the previous edition and even captained the side in a few games, has not got a game yet.
Captain Angelo Mathews has also not really made a big impact in the two games and he needs to deliver with both bat and ball against the Royals, along with Abhishek Nayar down the order.
The Warriors have a potentially good attack spearheaded by Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, who impressed in the Test series against Australia.
The Rajasthan Royals may not possess too many superstars in their line-up. But their strength lies in the fact that all the players in the line-up play with freedom and punch above their weight. The team would have learnt their lessons from last season, when they won four of their first six matches but only managed to win three of their remaining ten, eventually missing out on a Play-Off berth by just one win.
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, Dravid's former teammate for Karnataka, has shown his all round prowess 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.
The Rajasthan Royals have a 100% record against Pune Warriors India. The two teams have so far met on three occasions and the Rajasthan Royals have won each of those matches
Pune Warriors India will hop across the city to the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai to take on the Mumbai Indians on April 13 while the Rajasthan Royals will head back home to host Kings XI Punjab on April 14.
Squads
Rajasthan Royals: Rahul Dravid (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Shane Watson, Ajit Chandila, Ankeet Chavan, Ashok Menaria, Brad Hogg, Brad Hodge, Dishant Yagnik, Fidel Edwards, Harmeet Singh, James Faulkner, Kevon Cooper, Kumar Boresha, Kushal Perera, Owais Shah, Pravin Tambe, Rahul Shukla, S Sreesanth, Sachin Baby, Samual Badree, Sanju Samson, Shaun Tait, Sreevats Goswami, Siddharth Trivedi, Stuart Binny, Vikramjeet Malik.
Pune Warriors: Angelo Mathews (captain), Yuvraj Singh, Abhishek Nayar, Robin Uthappa, Ross Taylor, Ajanta Mendis, Manish Pandey, Marlon Samuels, Mitchell Marsh, Mithun Manhas, Parveez Rasool, Rahul Sharma, Ali Murtaza, Anustup Mazumdar, Ashok Dinda, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Dheeraj Jadhav, Eklavya Dwivedi, Harpreet Singh, Ishwar Pandey, Kane Richardson, Krishnakant Upadhyay, Luke Wright, Mahesh Rawat, R Gomez, Shrikant Wagh, Steve Smith, T Suman, Tamim Iqbal, Udit Birla, Aaron Finch.
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