Ground Reality and Pitch:
Having witnessed 14 matches played so far at the Kingsmead, the players would be familiar with the pitch and the ground conditions. Although it is not a easy scoring pitch, intelligent batting have helped the batsmen prosper at this ground. With the pitch offering consistent bounce, it would be an even contest between bat and ball.
Temperatures: Min - 60F Max - 74F Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Team Updates:
Chennai: With a semifinal berth at stake, Chennai Super Kings, smarting from a stunning defeat to tournament-laggards Kolkata Knight Riders, take on Kings XI Punjab in a do-or-die encounter. Chennai are currently placed second with 15 points after notching up seven wins from 13 matches. Even without their run-machine Matthew Hayden, Chennai posted 188 against the Kolkata team but couldn't defend the total, due to poor bowling. For Chennai, orange cap winner Hayden has done the bulk of scoring and Dhoni would desperately want him back in the squad. Skipper Dhoni would hope his team shrugs off the disappointment of the loss to Kolkata and comes out firing all cylinders against Punjab.
Punjab: Currently placed fifth on the points table, Punjab is battling inconsistent batting form of the top order. Sri Lankan import Kumar Sangakkara is doing the bulk of scoring while their opening pair of Sunny Sohal and Simon Katich and Yuvraj Singh in the middle order have failed to provide the impetus. Punjab has depended more on their bowlers to defend low totals, with all-rounder Irfan Pathan leading the pack with 15 wickets and Yusuf Abdulla and Piyush Chawla bagging 14 and 11 wickets respectively. A part-time spinner, Yuvraj himself has been in ominous form with the ball, picking up two hat-tricks so far in IPL II and he would hope to continue with the good work.
Contest to watch:
Hayden vs. Sreesanth: The maverick seamer has had a tough couple of matches while beginnings his IPL campaign, though he has come back well during the matches against Delhi and and Hyderabad. His first encounter with Hayden saw the bulky Australian score heavily against him. Sreesanth would hope to extract his revenge while Punjab face-off Chennai at Durban.
Numbers game:
3: The number of sixers hit by Hayden off Sreesanth during Chennai's previous encounter with Punjab.
8.89: Sreesanth's economy rate during this season of the IPL.
Sound Bytes:
It is disappointing to lose the match. We had (enough) runs on the board (to defend) but they (Kolkata) had some brilliant batting and on the other hand we had one of the worst bowling performance in the IPL: MS Dhoni after the team's loss to Kolkata
Teams:
Chennai Super Kings (From): Matthew Hayden, Parthiv Patel, Suresh Raina, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(w/c), Subramaniam Badrinath, Albie Morkel, Jacob Oram, Sudeep Tyagi, Shadab Jakati, Laxmipathy Balaji, Muttiah Muralitharan, Joginder Sharma, Manpreet Gony, Arun Karthik, George Bailey, Makhaya Ntini, Mike Hussey, Murali Vijay, Palani Amarnath, Ravichandran Ashwin, Thilan Thushara, Viraj Kadbe
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