The last time Gujarat Lions played Rising Pune Supergiant, they won handsomely, with over two overs to spare. That was the game in which Australian medium pacer Andrew Tye led took a hat-trick in his very first match.
Tye will no longer feature in the rest of the IPL 2017, having dislocated his shoulder when diving for the ball at the boundary. This is really unfortunate.
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Far too many players in the IPL have done this to themselves, going for a suicidal dive to save a few runs, and damaged their shoulders, ruling themselves out of the tournament.
Chris Lyle of KKR is another promising player who has gotten injured this way. One wonders if saving the extra run is really worth putting your cricketing future at risk.
So far Gujarat Lions have a 100 percent record against the Pune team, having won all the three games played between them. They stand sixth in the points table having lost to Mumbai Indians in the one-over eliminator, but having beaten Royal Challengers Bangalore by seven wickets. They also lost to Kings XI Punjab by 26 runs.
Rising Pune Supergiant are flying right now. They are fourth in the points table having beaten Royal Challengers Bangalore by 61 runs. Well everyone seems to beat the Bangalore side this season! They lost to Kolkata Knight Riders by seven wickets but defeated Mumbai Indians by three runs.
One expected the Rising Pune allrounder Ben Stokes to be back for this game. Stoke missed the last two games due to an injured shoulder, but is now perfectly fine. One wonders if the Pune team will really want to pick him, with Lockie Ferguson and Dan Christian playing so well.
The Ravindra Jadeja versus Steven Smith contest is the one to watch out for. The world’s #1 ranked bowler versus the #1 ranked batsman.
The Teams
Rising Pune Supergiant: 1 Ajinkya Rahane/Mayank Agarwal, 2 Rahul Tripathi, 3 Steven Smith (capt), 4 Manoj Tiwary , 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Dan Christian, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Lockie Ferguson, 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Imran Tahir 11 Jaydev Unadkat
Gujarat Lions: 1 Ishan Kishan, 2 Brendon McCullum, 3 Suresh Raina (capt), 4 Aaron Finch, 5 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Smith, 8 James Faulkner, 9 Basil Thampi, 10 Nathu Singh/ Irfan Pathan, 11 Ankit Soni
Watch Rising Pune Supergiant take on Gujarat Lions tonight at 8 pm on Sony Six!
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