Kings XI Punjab are trying an interesting experiment – they have made their Australian superstar Glen Maxwell their new captain. Maxwell has never been a captain before. So this is interesting.
Maxwell was not supposed to be the captain, that honor was supposed to go to M Vijay, the Indian opening batsman. But Vijay is suffering from wrist and shoulder injuries and will be out of the rest of the IPL 2017.
Ishant Sharma has been purchased by Kings XI on a belated note. This will be the fifth IPL team that Ishant plays for – which is the second highest by any player. Parthiv Patel and Aaron Finch hold the record for having played for the most number of IPL franchisees – 6.
Ishant had a terrible season in IPL 2016. He was able to get just 3 wickets at 9.86 runs per hour at a strike rate of 49.33 for Rising Pune Giant last season. It looks unlikely that he will feature in this game.
Shardul Thakur should get a start for Rising Pune’s XI, especially after the team’s frontline seamers did pretty badly in the opening game against Mumbai Indians.
Ashok Dinda was the worst bowler of the lot, going for a record 30 runs in the 20th over. This was the most by any one in IPL history in the 20th over. Dinda was hit for 4 sixes and 1 four by Indian all-rounder Hardik Patel. The other two seam bowlers, Deepak Chahar and Ben Stokes, did precious little. Stokes in particular was smashed all over the park.
Kings XI will be betting on a fresh find, a new INR 3 crore recruit T Natarajan, who has done spectacularly well in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. There are a lot of views on YouTube of his performance in the Super Over against Tuti Patriots.
He bowled 6 accurate yorkers and simply could not be taken away. When the target was just 13, Natarajan gave away just 4 runs! That was a great show indeed, and one hopes to see more of that this evening.
Natarajan would push Varun Aaron for a place in the XI. Aaron is another player who has never quite managed to settle down in a side, having moved from one franchisee to another. He is a genuine fast bowler who emerged at the same time as Umesh Yadav. But Yadav is today considered to be one of the best fast bowlers in the world and Aaron is nowhere to be seen.
The Teams
Kings XI Punjab: 1 Manan Vohra, 2 Glenn Maxwell (capt), 3 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 4 Eoin Morgan, 5 David Miller, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Axar Patel, 8 KC Cariappa, 9 Sandeep Sharma, 10 Mohit Sharma, 11 T Natarajan/Varun Aaron
Rising Pune Supergiant: 1 Ajinkya Rahane, 2 Mayank Agarwal, 3 Steven Smith (capt), 4 Ben Stokes, 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Manoj Tiwary, 7 Rajat Bhatia, 8 Jaydev Unadkat 9 Imran Tahir, 10 Shardul Thakur/Ishwar Pandey, 11 Adam Zampa
Watch Kings XI Punjab take on Rising Pune Supergiant at Indore on April 8, 2017 at 1600 local (1030 GMT).
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