Thursday will see a double header match, and the first match will be played between Chennai and Punjab. The 53rd match of the Indian T20 League will take place in the Dubai International Stadium on Thursday, 7th October.
Chennai has done a tremendous job in this season and they are placed at the second place on the points table just behind Delhi. On the other hand Punjab couldn't make it to the top four despite their opening order, which is consistently performing.
KL Rahul holds the orange cap and is the best batsman of Punjab. Also, he has proved to be one of the best captains in the league and has performed his best in the previous matches. Apart from Rahul, Mayank is the team's second star player. Mayank has produced magnificent knocks in almost all of the matches that he played and he has a good record on the Dubai pitch. In terms of bowling, Punjab has the experienced Shami who manages to get the big wickets. Moreover, Ravi Bishnoi is their other bowler who has performed considerably well in this season.
Talking about Chennai's batting, Gaikwad has been performing exceptionally well in nearly all the matches. Also, he is the second batsman who has scored the most runs in this season and is a worthy contender of the orange cap. If Punjab fails to get a place in the playoffs, which would be most-likely the case, Gaikwad might surpass Rahul as he would get to play more innings than him.
Weather Report
The maximum and minimum temperatures will be around 38 and 28 degrees respectively. Weather will be a little less humid with around 37 percent and the chances of precipitation is next to zero.
Pitch Report
Dubai's pitch has supported both the batsmen and the bowlers proving to be a balanced pitch. As the match continues the pitch gets slower and hence the toss-winning team will prefer bowling first.
Probable Playing XI For Punjab
KL Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Shahrukh Khan, Chris Jordan, Jhye Richardson, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
Probable Playing XI For Chennai
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar
Key Players
Punjab:
KL Rahul
Mayank Aggarwal
Chennai:
Ruturaj Gaikwad
Shardul Thakur
