Punjab and Chennai will take on each other in the second game of the Sunday’s double-header in Indian T20 League 2020.
Match Timings: Oct 04, 7:30 PM
Team Preview
Punjab and Chennai are in big trouble after getting three defeats from four games. Both sides meet in Dubai on Sunday to get back on the winning track. Punjab had just one bad game and two unlucky tasks made their journey quite disappointing. The openers are scoring runs and Shami is leading the bowling attack smartly. Apart from these three players, their side still looks struggling group. The middle-order was tested in the previous game and the only Pooran showed some responsibility. Maxwell had a poor tournament and he is not converting good start to the big one. Against Mumbai, their bowlers controlled the opponent until the 14th over and let down the hard work in flag-overs. The death-bowling issues are making Punjab’s game pretty disheartening, despite winning more phases of the game.
Meanwhile, Chennai is flowing like a sinking boat and the experience is now hurting them most. Hyderabad game put more questions in Dhoni’s mind as they suffered their 3rd straight defeat. Two young players took the game away from them and later, batsmen let them down in the chase of 165. The late fire couldn’t help Chennai to went past the total. Fleming wants to back their experienced players but Dhoni now needs to look back at their bench to make early changes as the tournament is going faster and the playoff qualification is getting blurred for the 3-times champions. Changes are expected on Sunday from Dhoni as Tahir can play his first game or he can recall Ngidi or Hazlewood.
Pitch Report
Dubai’s surface is a pretty decent surface for T20s and it offers a balance between bat and ball. Spinners can take better control of the game as the surface gets slow later in the game. Any score above 170 would be a challenging task while chasing.
Possible XI
Punjab
Lokesh Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Nicholas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, Karun Nair, James Neesham/Chris Jordan/Mujeeb, Sarfaraz Khan, Krishnappa Gowtham, Mohammed Shami, Sheldon Cottrell, Ravi Bishnoi
Chennai
Ambati Rayudu, Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Sam Curran, Piyush Chawla, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar
Key Players
Punjab
KL Rahul
This season so far – M: 4, Runs: 239, Avg:79.67
Mohammed Shami
This season so far – M: 4, Wickets: 8, Avg: 14.75
Chennai
Faf du Plessis
This season so far – M: 4, Runs: 195, Avg: 65
Deepak Chahar
This season so far – M: 4, Wickets: 5, Avg: 26.40
