Party spoilers' go head to head (Preview)

It is fun time for all the teams who have no pressure of qualifying for the play-offs. Hyderabad played the perfect ‘party spoilers’ when they beat Mumbai in their last match at Wankhede. Now, they move to another ground in the same city to play Pune.

Both Pune and Hyderabad have nothing to lose in their remaining games. They can afford to play fearless cricket and that may bring the best out of the two teams, who have not been very convincing in the tournament so far. However, the confidence levels in both the camps would be high after morals boosting wins in their last matches.

Pune overcame Hyderabad in the away match without lot of trouble and they would try to complete the double on their home soil. There is lot of buzz in IPL over the inclusion of Sourav Ganguly in the Sahara-owned side. The former Indian captain played a fighting knock against Hyderabad in the away tie. His inclusion has surely bolstered the Pune batting line-up that lacked an experience except Captain Yuvraj Singh. Jesse Ryder has also started to fire at the top scoring some quick runs. The only worry in the batting remains Robin Uthappa, who hasn’t scored a lot of runs in the tournament so far.

Hyderabad pulled off a big upset two days ago beating Mumbai in a match where the home side were overwhelming favorites. The batting as expected only got to a middling total, but the bowlers exploited the condition to full advantage and restricted the formidable Mumbai batting to a smaller score. The unlikely hero of that match, Amit Mishra performed both with bat and ball to set up the victory. Hyderabad were the ‘bottom dwellers’ on the points chart for some time but the win has pushed them one spot up and they would aim for another win to keep the upswing going.

PUNE

Players who can make impact…

Sourav Ganguly… He came out like a warrior in his debut match to silence all those who believed his days with the bat are over. Given the kind of cricketer he is, a big knock is just round the corner.

Yuvraj Singh…The burden of captaincy has taken toll on his batting. Though he has not failed with bat, the free-flowing Yuvraj we all know hasn’t been there. From now onwards, there is nothing at stake for Pune and the attacking left hander would be seen in his old colours.

SQUAD

Yuvraj Singh (c) Sourav Ganguly, 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.

HYDERABAD

Players who can make impact…

Amit Mishra….The former Delhi leggie is usually calm and composed on the cricket field. His tiff with Mumbai’s Munaf Patel fired him up and probably won the match for Hyderabad. His bowling is improving by the day especially his deceptive googly can fox even the very best.

Dale Steyn…..Arguably the best pace bowler around these days, he has not clicked in the IPL-4. He would surely want to redeem himself with a match-winning performance in the T20 format where everything is tilted against the bowlers.

SQUAD

Akash Bhandari, Amit Mishra, Anand Rajan, Ankit Sharma, Ashish Reddy, Bharat Chipli, Cameron White, Chris Lynn, Dale Steyn, Daniel Christian, DR Teja, Harmeet Singh, Ishan Malhotra, Ishank Jaggi, Ishant Sharma, Jaydev Shah, JP Duminy, Juan Theron, K Sangakkara (c)(wk), Kedar Devdhar, Manpreet Gony, Michael Lumb, Pragyan Ojha, Shikhar Dhawan, Sunny Sohal.