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Pune: Their campaign going completely haywire after a fifth straight loss, Pune Warriors would be desperate to make amends but they face an uphill task when they lock horns with the star-studded Royal Challengers Bangalore in an IPL match on Thursday.
It won't be an easy task for Aaron Finch's boys as they are up against a formidable Bangalore side which boasts of the big-hitting Chris Gayle.
On paper, Bangalore appear to be the overwhelming favourites with six wins in 10 games, while Pune are languishing at the bottom with just two wins in 10 matches.
The Allan Donald-coached Pune side would be eager to forget the nightmarish experience it encountered the last time these two teams met on April 23, when Bangalore registered the highest team score of 263 and Gayle massacred the bowling to score a record 66-ball 175.
The Warriors have been woefully out of sorts, inconsistent in all departments. Their batting and bowling hasn't clicked together and this is what cost them against two-time IPL champions Chennai Super Kings on Tuesday, when they lost by 37 runs.
Chasing a target of 165 against Chennai, Pune lost the plot by losing three quick wickets at the start and never recovered from there.
Their poor death bowling has been hurting them and Pune gave away 62 runs in the last five overs in their previous match against Chennai and conceded 63 off their last five overs against a struggling Delhi Daredevils side on Sunday.
On the other hand, in the days after defeating Pune by 130 runs, Bangalore have lost two games in a row and the visitors would be keen to get back to the winning ways.
Bangalore have won all their matches at home and they would try to shrug off the tag of not being able to win the away games by securing a victory at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium here.
Gayle has amassed 484 runs and is the leading run-scorer in the tournament and Pune are well aware of his hard-hitting abilities, having been on the receiving end once.
The bowling attack is relatively young and experienced pacers -- Vinay Kumar, RP Singh and Ravi Rampaul -- have been unable to restrict the opposition batsmen in the last two games.
Teams from:
Pune Warriors: Angelo Mathews (captain), Aaron Finch, Abhishek Nayar, Ajanta Mendis, Ali Murtaza, Anustup Mazumdar, Ashok Dinda, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Dheeraj Jadhav, Eklavya Dwivedi, Harpreet Singh, Ishwar Pandey, Kane Richardson, Krishnakant Upadhyay, Luke Wright, Mahesh Rawat, Manish Pandey, Marlon Samuels, Mitchell Marsh, Mithun Manhas, Parveez Rasool, Rahul Sharma, R Gomez, Robin Uthappa (wk), Ross Taylor, Shrikant Wagh, Steve Smith, T Suman, Tamim Iqbal, Udit Birla, Wayne Parnell and Yuvraj Singh.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (Capt.), AB de Villiers (wk), Abhimanyu Mithun, Abhinav Mukund, Andrew McDonald, Arun Karthik (wk), Cheteshwar Pujara, Chris Gayle, Christopher Barnwell, Daniel Christian, Daniel Vettori, Harshal Patel, Jaidev Unadkat, KP Appanna, Karun Nair, Mayank Agarwal, Moises Henriques, Murali Kartik, Muttiah Muralitharan, Pankaj Singh, Prasanth Parameswaran, Vinay Kumar, Ravi Rampaul, Rudra Pratap Singh, S Aravind, Sandeep Warrier, Saurabh Tiwary, Sheldon Jackson, Sunny Sohal, Syed Mohammad, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Vijay Zol, Zaheer Khan.
Match facts
Thursday May 2, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (1430 GMT)
