Chennai, Rajasthan Fights for Top Spot

Jaipur: Playing their last match on home soil, Rajasthan Royals would look to consolidate their number three position in the points table and upstage top-placed title contenders Chennai Super Kings when the two most balanced sides clash in an IPL match on Sunday.

Rajasthan's citadel has been breached just once in the tournament so far when they were outplayed by Mumbai Indians, and the hosts would look to sign off their home campaign on a high.

Moreover, Rajasthan were beaten by the table-toppers in an away game and they would like to return the compliment.

Rajasthan have done exceedingly well while chasing, their last three victories were comprehensive, and Chennai have emerged as superb defenders.

The batsmen in both the teams are in sparkling form. The only thing that gives a slight advantage to Chennai is their bowling.

Mohit Sharma has been a revelation upfront while R Ashwin and Dwayne Bravo have done well in the middle overs.

The key to Rajasthan would be to contain the marauding Chennai batsmen.

James Faulkner, Ajit Chandila, Kevon Cooper and Shane Watson have a tough task at hand but if they click, Rajasthan would be in with a very good chance.

Rahul Dravid, Ajinkya Rahane, Watson and Sanju Samson form a very formidable batting line-up, capable of chasing down any total, so it will boil down to how the home bowlers perform.

Teams from:

Rajasthan Royals: Rahul Dravid (Captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Sanju Samson (wk), Shane Watson, Brad Hodge, Stuart Binny, Owais Shah, James Faulkner, Ajit Chandila, Siddharth Trivedi, S Sreesanth, Brad Hogg, Fidel Edwards, Kevon Cooper, Kushal Perera, Samuel Badree, Shaun Tait, Ankit Chavan, Ashok Maneria, Dishant Yagnik (wk), Harmeet Singh, Kumar Borsea, Pravin Thambe, Rahul Shukla, Sachin Baby, Shreevats Goswami, Vikramjeet Malik.

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (Captain & wk), Akila Dananjaya, Albie Morkel, Srikkanta Anirutha, Ankit Rajpoot, Baba Aparajith, Ben Hilfenhaus, Ben Laughlin, Chris Morris, Dirk Nannes, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Jason Holder, Michael Hussey, Mohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, Nuwan Kulasekara, R Karthikeyan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ronit More, Shadab Jakati, S Badrinath, Suresh Raina, Vijay Shankar and Wridhiman Saha (wk).

Match facts
Sunday May 12, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (1430 GMT)