Match 39 of this year’s IPL will go a long way in determining the fourth and final spot in the playoffs.
For the hosts, Pune know a win will give them breathing space ahead of the chasing pack in fourth and close the gap above them, opening up the possibility of even challenging for the top-two places.
Meanwhile, Gujarat can move to within two points of Rising Pune Supergiant in fourth with a win, which will breathe new life into the playoff hunt.
Ahead of the match, we have the latest team news, start time and date, as well as how you can watch all the action from the UAE.
DATE, TIME, VENUE INFO
Date: May 1, 2017 (Monday)
Time: 18:30 GST, 18:00 local time (IST), 14:30 GMT
Venue: Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune
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
RPS SQUAD: MS Dhoni, Ajinkya Rahane, Steve Smith, Faf du Plessis, Ashok Dinda, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Ankit Sharma, Ishwar Pandey, Adam Zampa, Jaskaran Singh, Baba Aparajith, Deepak Chahar, Usman Khawaja, Mayank Agarwal, Ben Stokes, Jaydev Unadkat, Rahul Chahar, Saurabh Kumar, Dan Christian, Milind Tandon, Rahul Tripathi, Manoj Tiwary, Lockie Ferguson, Shardul Thakur, Imran Tahir
Pune absolutely battered RCB in their last match, the bowlers helped by the Bangalore batsmen that are woefully short of runs.
That would have been a huge bonus for Pune, with Imran Tahir continuing to impress and Lockie Ferguson superb.
Ben Stokes remains the big absentee and, if he’s fit, then expect the England all-rounder to return in the place of Dan Christian.
PREDICTED RPS XI: Rahane, Tripathi, Smith (c), Dhoni (wk), Tiwary, Stokes, Washington, Chahar, Ferguson, Unadkat, Tahir
GL SQUAD: Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, James Faulkner, Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Dwayne Smith, Dinesh Karthik, Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar, Andrew Tye, Ishan Kishan, Pradeep Sangwan, Shivil Kaushik, Shadab Jakati, Jaydev Shah, Nathu Singh, Basil Thampi, Tejas Singh Baroka, Manpreet Gony, Jason Roy, Munaf Patel, Chirag Suri, Shelly Shaurya, Shubham Agrawal, Pratham Singh, Aksh Deep Nath, Irfan Pathan, Ankit Soni
A Super Over defeat to Mumbai last time out will have hurt Gujarat but there were positives in a loss to one of this season’s best teams.
Andrew Tye hurt his shoulder in the same match and is likely to be out for the season. Ankit Soni impressed and should have done enough to keep his place.
PREDICTED GL XI: McCullum, Kishan, Raina (c), Finch, Karthik (wk), Smith, Jadeja, Faulkner, Pathan, Thampi, Soni.
FORM
(Last five matches – with latest match first)
RPS: W L W W W
GL: L W L W L
MATCH PREDICTION
Pune have been enjoying things of late and we can’t see that ending here; home win.