Rising Pune Supergiant take on Delhi Daredevils in their second home game of Indian Premier League 2017 season at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune on Tuesday.
The hosts are returning to Pune after losing their first away game of the season to Kings XI Punjab by six wickets on Saturday. On the other hand, Delhi have not had a good start to the season, losing their season opener on the road against Royal Challengers Bangalore during the weekend.
Skipper Steve Smith has quite a few areas of concern as his team eyes return to winning ways. Opener Mayank Agarwal has been struggling to get going so far with scores of six and 0 and former captain MS Dhoni's form with the bat let the team down in their last game.
Pune will be tempted to play Faf du Plessis in today's game and all-rounder Dan Christian might have to make way. The South African batsman will inject firepower to the middle order and provide enough support to Smith and Ben Stokes.
While Imran Tahir has been leading the show with the ball for RPS, Ashok Dinda, who has conceded aplenty in the first two outings, is likely to face the axe as they have options in Shardul Thakur, Ishwar Pandey and Jayadev Unadkat to open with the new ball.
On the other hand, Delhi struggled to chase 158 against RCB in their opener, in which the impact of the absence of Quinton de Kock and JP Duminy was seen. Zaheer Khan-led side were finding it difficult as their key men, including Karun Nair and Sanju Samson, are out of form.
While RPS have their own issues to address, the clash against the depleted DD unit will give them some some room to experiment more and get their combinations right.
TV Schedule
India: Sony Max, Sony Six
US: ESPN, Willow TV
UK: Sky Sports
Malaysia: Astro SuperSport
South Africa: SuperSport
Caribbean: Flow TV, Sportsmax
Middle East: OSN Cricket
Afghanistan: Lemar TV
Team News
RPS
Possible XI: Smith (c), Faf du Plessis, Rahane, Stokes, Tiwary, Dhoni (wk), Bhatia, R Chahar, Tahir, Thakur, Ankit
DD
Possible XI: Zaheer (c), Tare, Billings, Nair, Samson, Pant (wk), Morris, Brathwaite, Cummins, Mishra, Nadeem
