We have all the key details of the fourth match of the Indian Premier League between Kings XI Punjab and Rising Pune Supergiant, so that you don’t miss any action.
We’ll have all of the following important information for every single T20 fixture from Indian cricket’s premier T20 competition, right here on Sport360.com.
DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO
Date: April 8, 2017 (Saturday)
Time: 14:30 GST, 16:00 local time (IST), 10:30 GMT
Venue: Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore.
WHERE TO WATCH, LIVE STREAMING INFO
TV: UAE – OSN Sports Cricket HD, India – Sony Six, Sony Six HD (English), Sony Max, Sony Max HD 3 (Hindi), UK – Sky Sports
Online streaming: hotstar.com, Hotstar app (in India only)
LIVE: Sport360.com.
TEAM NEWS, SQUADS, PREDICTED XIs
KXIP SQUAD:
Varun Aaron, Hashim Amla, Anureet Singh, Armaan Jaffer, KC Cariappa, Martin Guptill, Gurkeerat Mann Singh, Matt Henry, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell (c), David Miller, Eoin Morgan, Nikhil Naik, T Natarajan, Axar Patel, Wriddhiman Saha (W), Pradeep Sahu, Darren Sammy, Sandeep Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Rinku Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Swapnil Singh, Rahul Tewatia, Manan Vohra, Ishant Sharma.
In recent years, Kings XI Punjab have tended to struggle with inconsistency in the Indian Premier League.
They have either had great games and beaten some good sides or have been average throughout the tournament.
With Murali Vijay ruled out for the entire IPL and Martin Guptill nursing a hamstring injury, it is likely Shaun Marsh or Hashim Amla will get a look-in along with Manan Vohra at the top of the order.
The middle order for Punjab is well set with David Miller and Glenn Maxwell but it’ll be interesting to see who they select between Marcus Stoinis and Eoin Morgan.
Their bowling is pace heavy with Sandeep Sharma, Varun Aaron, Mohit Sharma, rookie Thangarasu Natarajan and the newly added Ishant Sharma in the ranks.
Punjab might have to play with Akshar Patel as their specialist spinner or rope in an Indian rookie to complete their XI.
PREDICTED KXIP XI: Amla/Marsh, Vohra, Maxwell (c), Miller, Stoinis/Morgan, Saha (wk), Mann, Axar, Sandeep, Mohit, T Natarajan.
RPSG SQUAD:
Steve Smith (C), Mayank Agarwal, Ankit Sharma, Baba Aparajith, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Deepak Chahar, Rahul Chahar, Dan Christian, MS Dhoni (W), Ashok Dinda, Faf du Plessis, Lockie Ferguson, Imran Tahir, Jaskaran Singh, Usman Khawaja, Ajinkya Rahane, Saurabh Kumar, Ben Stokes, Milind Tandon, Manoj Tiwary, Adam Zampa, Jaydev Unadkat, Ishwar Pandey, Rahul Tripathi, Shardul Thakur.
Pune will be riding high on confidence after notching their first win in the tournament against Mumbai Indians in their previous outing in Pune.
The last time these two teams met last year, MS Dhoni smashed 23 runs in the final over off Axar to handover the wooden spoon to Punjab.
Their batting looks strong with Ajinkya Rahane and skipper Steve Smith in great form, while they have the luxury of Ben Stokes and Dhoni firepower in the middle order.
Mayank Agarwal and Manoj Tiwary can also chip in with runs too.
The spin department also looks set with both Imran Tahir and Adam Zampa proving their worth in the previous game.
However, a potential concern for Pune may be the plight of their fast bowling attack.
They have a habit of leaking runs at the death overs and it’s an area Smith’s side can definitely improve upon.
PREDICTED RPS XI: Rahane, Agarwal, Smith, MS Dhoni (wk), Stokes, Tiwary, Bhatia, Dinda, Chahar, Tahir, Zampa.
FORM
(Last five matches – with latest match first)
KXIP: L L L W L
RPSG: W W W L L
MATCH PREDICTION
RPSG to win.