Confident Bangalore face woeful Pune (Preview)

The confidence levels of the two teams walking out on the field of play for tomorrow’s match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium would be a total contrast. Bangalore after a wobble in the initial stages of the tournament have mounted a impressive rearguard mainly due to their batting strength, where as Pune started with a bang but since then the teams fortunes have nosedived.

The Yuvraj-led team seems to have forgotten the art of aggressive batting with their captain being the sole exception. Four Consecutive losses mean they have serious lacunae in the batting department. Either they fall short of modest targets when chasing or fail to come up with a good show batting first. This has put a lot of pressure on their bowlers.

The schedule also isn’t helping them as they would be playing their third match in five days in as many as three different cities. That should be enough to tire the squad physically as well as mentally and the string of losses is compounding the misery.

Their opponents, Bangalore are on a high after winning back to back contests against Kolkata and Delhi. Among the batters explosive Chris Gayle and the dependable Virat Kohli have been among the runs. Not to forget the South-African AB de Villiers who can accumulate runs at a very brisk pace.

The Bangalore bowling attack has some experienced hands- Zaheer Khan and Skipper Daniel Vettori. Zaheer in particular would be threat for Pune after that superb in-swinger cleaning up David Warner in their last outing against Delhi.

With such a balanced team and on current form Bangalore are the overwhelming favorites going into this match and the odds of an upset would depend on how the rest of the Pune team support their captain who has been the lone-man-standing so far.

PUNE

Players who can make impact…

Yuvraj Singh…Two back to back scores that would win a team matches on most days yet his team can’t get over the line. If Pune are to get out of the jail, Yuvi has to be the man. The likes of Zaheer Khan and Vettori would be targeted for sure.

Jesse Ryder….The burly left-hander’s performance this year hasn’t matched his abilities with the bat. There is no better time to do it than now, when his team is down and out. And, more than anybody else Yuvi would be expecting a bit of help from somebody in his team.

SQUAD

Yuvraj Singh (c) A Jhunjhunwala,Alfonso Thomas,Angelo Mathews,Ashish Nehra,Bhuvneshwar Kumar,Callum Ferguson,Dheeraj Jadhav,Eklavya Dwivedi,Ganesh Gaikwad, Graeme Smith,Harpreet Singh,Harshad Khadiwale,Imtiyaz Ahmed,Jerome Taylor,Jesse Ryder,Kamran Khan,Manish Pandey,Mitchell Marsh,Mithun Manhas,Monish Mishra,Murali Kartik,Nathan McCullum,Rahul Sharma,Robin Uthappa,Sachin Rana,Shrikant Mundhe,Shrikant Wagh,Tim Paine (wk),Wayne Parnell.

BANGALORE

Players who can make impact…

Virat Kohli…The classy right hander in the last match showed why he is very highly rated in the cricketing circles. A quick-fire half century full of pure cricket shots from him helped Bangalore win against Delhi. If he plays like that, Pune’s woes will surely continue.

AB de Villiers....His batting is from the “fast and furious” school of cricket. A superb player on any surface, he can take the attack to the opposition at will. So far, he has had a quite IPL but batsmen of his class do not let the opposition bowlers have it for very long.

SQUAD

AB de Villiers,Abhimanyu Mithun,Abrar Kazi,Arun Karthik,Asad Pathan,BN Barath,Charl Langeveldt,Cheteshwar Pujara,Daniel Vettori (c),Dirk Nannes,Johan van der Wath, Jonathan Vandiar,Luke Pomersbach,Mayank Agarwal,Mohammad Kaif,Muralidharen Gautam,Nuwan Pradeep,Raju Bhatkal,Rilee Rossouw,Ryan Ninan,Saurabh Tiwary, Sreenath Aravind, Tillakaratne Dilshan,Virat Kohli, Zaheer Khan.