Punjab Kings face a dazed LSG
Mohali: While Punjab Kings will be eyeing their fifth win of the IPL, Lucknow Super Giants will be more concerned about pulling off their best batting performance when they face each other tomorrow at the IS Bindra PCA Stadium here.
Halfway into the competition, both teams have four wins from seven games, but Lucknow are positioned at the fourth spot in the standings owing to their better net run-rate (+0.547) as compare to Punjab’s (-0.162), who are placed sixth.
In their last match, Punjab recorded a 13-run win over Mumbai Indians, while Lucknow gifted a low-scoring match to Gujarat Titans by seven runs. Though the Lucknow pitch was not ideal for batting, skipper KL Rahul’s strike-rate has become the talking point again as his team failed to chase down 136 against Gujarat. He consumed as many as 61 balls to score 68 runs. Rahul has a strike-rate of 113.91 so far and will be eager to perform better against his former team. Moreover, the absence of pacer Mark Wood, who has not played since April 15 due to an illness, has weakened their bowling attack.
On the other hand, Punjab made a stunning comeback against Mumbai to end their lean patch in absence of star batter Shikhar Dhawan. Though Dhawan did train today, his presence for tomorrow’s match is still a mystery. In what turned out to be a run-fest, stand-in skipper Sam Curran finally scored a fifty and did justice to his hefty price tag in company of Harpreet Singh Bhatia, who also shone with a 41.
