Dhoni's men look to bully past Punjab
The Kings XI team may be playing at home on Wednesday but they have an uphill task ahead as they take on MS Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings at the Punjab Cricket Association stadium here.
The Kings XI team may be playing at home on Wednesday but they have an uphill task ahead as they take on MS Dhoni's Chennai Super Kings at the Punjab Cricket Association stadium here.
Coming after an embarrassing loss against the Pune Warriors, the Kings XI Punjab unit will hope to get its act together , especially in the batting department that floundered from the word go against Yuvraj Singh's team that made its debut in the Indian Premier League at the DY Patil stadium.
That the top four batsmen scored 8 runs to begin with, followed by a middle-order that only had Ryan McLaren score a scorching half century, hints that the entire team will need to set the pace with the bat, rather than get intimidated by a pace and bounce and wait for a single heroic act if any at all. The PCA track is known to assist some movement and if the rather unknown duo of Alfonso Thomas and Shrikant Wagh could manage to intimidate, the more experienced Tim Southee and Albie Morkel can be more than a handful to cope against.
The Super Kings on the other hand are a side that paints the completely opposite picture. A solid batting display against the Knight Riders at home and a shrewd bowling attack that held its nerve to seal a 2 run win will auger well for the 2010 champions.
Srikkanth Anirudha with 64 runs in his bag from just the one match, will be high on confidence and the Kings XI would do well to have a separate chapter in their strategy book to tackle this opening batsman alone.ÂÂ
Chennai also boasts of a strong middle order that has MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Scott Styris. Up against Praveen Kumar and Piyush Chawla, the contest might well turn out to be a super thriller.
What the Kings XI Punjab would be hoping the most is that their new skipper Adam Gilchrist fires with the bat, whether the team itself bats first or chases. Once and if the former Australian wicket-keeper gets his bat do the talking, all talks of defending champions and Dhoni as captain cool can fall silent at this 30,000 capacity stadium.