IPL 2021 PBKS vs CSK Match 8 Preview

image: BCCI

In the first match, Punjab Kings won against the Rajasthan Royals by defending a huge total and won by just 4 runs shy. Both the teams took the match to the final ball of the final over. Just by sheer luck, the Punjab Kings have won the match.

This time it will be different, today Punjab Kings will be playing against the Chennai Super Kings in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. In the 6th between RR and DC, both the teams found it difficult to score runs in the middle and final overs of the innings.

Let's see if any of the winning team captains chose to bat first. Since the first match, everyone is closing to bowl first.

Punjab Kings

In the first match, the top and middle-order batsmen played most of the innings, with more boundaries than the singles. In today's match, running between the wickets is important than the boundaries as the CSK bowlers are hard to hit for too many boundaries like in the previous match.

A partnership of the top and middle-order batsmen might be crucial for the PBKS to get a good score or chase a score. And the effective blowing from PBKS is going to decide their fate.

Arshdeep Singh really done a good job in the match against the Rajasthan, especially the last over of that match is unforgettable.

Shardul Thakur, with his bowling, can really do the damage to the PBKS batting lineup during the powerplay and Sam Curran at the death over. Sam can really show his impact on the scoreboard, if he can stop runs from flowing, the PBKS squad will be in real trouble. 

Coming to the batsmen, in the middle overs Ambati Rayadu and Suresh Raina can score runs for the team. More the time they stay in the field, the more damage for PBKS.

Here is the squad of Punjab Kings

Probable playing 11: 

1 KL Rahul (capt, wk), 2 Mayank Agarwal, 3 Chris Gayle, 4 Deepak Hooda, 5 Nicholas Pooran, 6 Shahrukh Khan, 7 Chris Jordan, 8 Jhye Richardson, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Arshdeep Singh

Chennai Super Kings

In the first match against the Delhi capitals, CSK bowlers are unable to stop the runs from leaking. This is the main reason to lose the match. 

CSK didn't get any wickets of DC in the powerplay, if this happens today against PBKS, the score crosses 200 again.

KL Rahul, Chris Gayle and Deepak Hooda are done the most damage for the Rajasthan Royals. These three wickets are important for Chennai Super Kings.

CSK batsmen need to look after Arshdeep Singh in middle and death overs and Mohammed Shami in the powerplay. Both the bowlers can take wickets and will not give any runs which may hurt the run rate for CSK.

Here is the squad of Chennai Super Kings

Probable Playing 11 

1 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Moeen Ali, 4 Suresh Raina, 5 Ambati Rayudu, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 8 Sam Curran, 9 Dwayne Bravo, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Deepak Chahar

IPL 2021 RR vs PBKS Match 4

image: BCCI

Today in the Indian Premier League, Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings are going to fight for the two points in their first match of the season in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

In the second match between Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals, the team won the toss chose to field and restrict the opponent to a lower score.

You can expect that same strategy today also on this ground. Just like in the last game the pitch may favour seamers and can easily score runs between 180-190 in the innings.

Rajasthan Royals

In the previous edition of the IPL in Dubai, Rajasthan Royals found it hard to win the matches even with good lower-middle order and a good bowling line up.

The team just managed to win 6 out of 14 matches on the league stage and finished last in the points table. There are a few matches that are lost just because of a lack of planning and implementation.

Rahul Tewatia, an unknown player before last year IPL match started to hit sixes and saved a few matches when the top and middle-order batsman failed.

The team management changed the entire stakes in the team by releasing their captain Steven Smith and others from the team and brought few new players.

 The most interesting buys are Chris Morris for 16.25 crores and Shivam Dubey for 4.4 crores. These all-rounders have to bring a good batting lineup for the team.

Here is the squad of Rajasthan Royals

Probable Playing 11

Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson (C), Mahipal Lormor, Shivam Dube, Riyan Parag, Rahul Tewatia, Chris Morris, Sreyas Gopal, Karthik Tyagi, Andrew Tye 

Punjab Kings

With a brand new team and brand new players, the franchise looks promising on the paper. The team brought new players for a huge price as they had a deep purse at the start of the auction.

The costliest buy for the team is a bowler, Jhye Richardson for 14 crores followed by another bowler Riley Meredith for 8 crores followed by an all-rounder Moises Henriques for 4.2 crores.

With these new buy's the team had a decent bowling lineup in the paper and with the addition of Shahrukh Khan for 5.25 crores the batting lineup might also improve.

Even though they fought hard for the victories the old team finished third last just top of Chennai Super Kings last year in Dubai.

Here is the Punjab Kings squad.

Probable playing 11 

KL Rahul (c & wk), Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Nicholas Pooran, Mandeep Singh, Shahrukh Khan, Chris Jordan, Jhye Richardson, Ravi Bishnoi, Murugan Ashwin, Mohammed Shami.

IPL 2021 SRH vs KKR Match 3

image: Hotstar

The third match of the Indian Premier League 2021 is between the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Kolkata Knight Rider on the 11th of April.

Sunrisers is captained by David Warner and the Kolkata Knight Riders are led by the Worldcup-winning team captain Eion Morgan.

Both the teams won the title at least once in these fourteen years, but last year the teams fought a very thought fight to enter the knock-out stage.

Only Sunrisers Hyderabad was able to enter the knockout stage but, in the 2nd qualifiers match Delhi Capitals won the match by 17 runs, which led the team to drop out of the series.

Coming to Kolkata Knight Riders, they were in the 5th position in the points table last year. The team announced a change in captaincy in the midseason due to the frequent loss of the matches on the league stage. 

Dinesh Karthik stepped out of the captaincy, and England cricket team captain, Eion Morgan took his place, after that the team started to win the matches.

The match is going to be played in Chennai. The broadcast starts at 6 PM today on Star Sports Channels.

Sunrisers Hyderabad

SRH just added three players in the auction this year. The big buy is Kedhar Jadhav for 2 crores, followed by the Bangladesh Bowler Mujeeb Ur Rehman for 1.5 crores and Jagadeesha Suchit for 30 Lakhs.

The main problem for the Sunrisers are the middle order, if the top order performed well the team will win obviously. But, if the top order fails, there is no one in the middle order to win the matches.

Here comes the Kedhar Jadhav, he performs well in the middle order than in the top-middle or lower-middle order.  

Coming to the bowling department, they have the best bowlers in the team with good spin options and fast bowling. Adding Mujeeb Ur Rehman to the squad is a plus point for the team.

Here is the Sun Riser Hyderabad Squad.

Probable Playing 11* : 

 David Warner (c), Jhonny Bairstow, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jhadav, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad, Vijay Shankar, Rashid Khan, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma, T Natrajan.

Team News:

Kolkata Knight Riders

After last year loss, KKR brought in some big guns to the team Shakib Al Hassan was one among them for 3.5 crores, next inline was Harbajan Singh for 2 crores to strength up the spin bowling, followed by Ben Cutting, Karun Nair, Pawan Negi, Venkatesh Iyer, Sheldon Jackson and Vibhav Arora.

Hope this team would deliver the trophy this year.

Coming to last year performance, KKR just lost their touch in winning the matches. They scored big runs but unable to defend or unable to chase the small totals.

The team has flaws in both the batting and bowling department. With the new recruits, the team has huge chances to overcome their flaws very soon. Otherwise, the history repeats this year too.

Here is the KKR Squad

Probable Playing 11* :

Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Shakib Al Hassan, Karun Nair, Dinesh Karthik, Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakraborty.     

Team News

Pitch

In the first match between the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the team won the toss to choose the fielding first to restrict the opponent to a small score.

In this match too, the team which won the toss may choose to bowl first and restrict the opponent to a lower score and chase the score.

Here is the video of the pitch report in the first match.

IPL 2021 CSK vs DC Match 2

The second match of the Indian Premier League 2021 is between the Chennai Super Kings and the Delhi Capitals on the 10th of April.

Chennai Super Kings led by the legendary, cool captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The team won three times in the IPL. But, last year the team didn't even qualified for the playoffs.

Delhi capitals, led by the rookie captain Rishab Pant by replacing Shreyas Iyer. As Shreyas Iyer injured his shoulder during an ODI match, he was ruled out for the entire season.

This team went to finals last year, and knock out stage the year before that. As the team is performing well, for the last two years, this year they might really have the chance to lift the cup.

The match starts at 7:30 PM IST in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. The match will be played behind a closed door without spectators due to coronavirus.

Chennai Super Kings

The team is lead by MS Dhoni, a former captain of the Indian cricket team. With his experience, he led the team as a three-time champion in IPL. But, last year, the team didn't even make it to the knock-outs.

As CSK really struggled with their batting lineup and didn't have good middle-order batsmen. Raina, Harbajan Singh leaving the tournament due to personal reasons made a huge impact on the team.

The new includes such as Cheteshwar Pujara, K Gowtham, Moeen Ali might add strength to the batting and bowling line up. Moreover, Raina is back on the team. 

Here is the squad of Chennai super kings

Probable playing 11 *: This will be updated soon 

Team News

• Lungi Ngidi will not be playing the first match due to mandatory quarantine.
• Josh Hazelwood opted out of IPL 2021 due to personal reasons. 

Delhi Capitals

With a new captain and new purchases, the team is on fire this year. As they made almost to the finals last year, this year Delhi Capitals are already in the limelight. In 2019, the team made it to knockouts and lost to Chennai super kings in Vishakapatnam. They made it to the finals in the previous season and lost to Mumbai Indians. 

The change in captaincy and losing two important players for the first match might put DC in a tough place. They might struggle a bit from the start. If they opt to bat first, and if Shikar gave a good start and took the total score to 180 -190, the team might have an edge against CSK.

Here is the squad of Delhi Capitals

Probable Playing 11 *: Shikar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishab Pant (c &wk), Shemron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Axar Patel/ Chris Woakes, R Ashwin, K Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Ishant Sharma/ Umesh Yadav. 

Team News:

• Shreyas Iyer to miss the entire season due to a shoulder injury.
• Rishab Pant to take his place as Captain.
• Axar Patel has tested positive for coronavirus, he might not play the first match.
• Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje will no the playing the first match due to mandatory quarantine.

Toss: This will be updated soon

Pitch Report: This Will be updated soon

Weather: This will be updated soon

For detailed analysis visit https://digest.cricn.co.in.

*  Probable playing 11 is just a guess by my side after the careful analysis of the teams. These are not 100% garunteed.

You can join us for the live blog down below.

IPL 2021 MI vs RCB Match 1

The first match of the Indian Premier League 2021 edition to start with Mumbai Indians and the Royal challengers Bangalore on the 9th of April.

On one side, Mumbai Indians, who are in hunger for their 6th IPL trophy, on the other hand, Royal Challenger Bangalore with legends and yet to win a cup.

The match starts at 7:30 PM IST in M A Chidambaram Stadium at Chennai. The match will be played behind a closed door without spectators due to coronavirus.

Mumbai Indians 

Mumbai Indians are the dominating team in IPL. They won almost 70% of their matches in the IPL in the last two seasons. They have got a good batting lineup that can score even in death overs and good bowlers who can deliver wickets in the same death overs.

Here is the squad of Mumbai Indians for the 2021 IPL

Probable Playing 11*: Rohit Sharma (c), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (wk), Anmolpreet Singh, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya. Kieron Pollard, Adam Milne, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Piyush Chawla/Rahul Chahar.

Team News: 

• Hardik Pandya will be playing as an all-rounder.
• Quinton de Kock to miss the first match due to mandatory quarantine. 

Royal Challengers Bangalore

One of the worlds top batsmen cum captain, a batsman cum wicket-keeper who can hit the ball in any direction, and the worlds best spinner is their team but they are unable to lift the IPL cup.

Devdutt Padikkal, a young talent, who recently showed his performance in the Vijay Hazare trophy secured a place in the team. But, due to coronavirus, he was quarantined in his house in Bengaluru.

The team didn't announce anything about his status in the first game. If he is still positive, he might not play in the first game. RCB needs Padikkal best performance in the powerplay to get a good score in the game.

Here is the Royal Challengers Bangalore Squad for IPL 2021:

 

Probable Playing 11*: Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, AB de Villers (wk), Washington Sundar, M Azharudeen, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj, Glenn Maxwell, Shahbaz Ahmed, Kyle Jamieson

For detailed analysis on the Dream 11 team visit https://digest.cricn.co.in.

* Probable playing 11 is just a guess by my side after the careful analysis of the teams. These are not 100% garunteed.

Team News

• Adam Zampa might not be available for the first match due to his marriage.
• Devdutt Padikkal tested positive for coronavirus on march 22nd. He might not play the first match.
• An Indian wicket-keeper will be behind the wickets for RCB. Not the Mr.360.
• Daniel Sams tested positive for coronavirus ahead of the first match.

Numbers:

Virat Kohli is just 122 runs away to reach 6000 runs in IPL.

Toss: The team that won the toss might choose to Bowl first. The dew later on the field might help score runs.

Pitch report: Chennai will always help spin bowlers very well. The dew in the second innings of the game might slightly change the outcome. The average runs scored in this ground is 144 runs. I would be expecting at least 150 to 170 on the board for the first innings. 

Weather: At the beginning of the match the temperature will be around 31 C and the temperature will be dropping to 29C with a partly cloudy sky. The winds will be blowing at 20 to 21 kph towards the city.

You can also join us for the live blog on the 9th of April 2021 down below