Kings XI Looks to Keep Hopes Alive

Dharamsala: Still in with an outside chance of progressing to the playoffs, Kings XI Punjab need to keep their winning juggernaut rolling when they take on a struggling Delhi Daredevils on Thursday.

Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals already qualify first three places and there is a four-way race between Royal Challengers Bangalore, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kings XI and defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders for the last available spot.

Kings XI are presently lying sixth in the nine team competition with 12 points from 14 games. And to brighten their play-off chances, the Punjab outfit needs to win both their last two games and hope that RCB and Sunrisers lose their remaining fixtures.

While RCB play table-toppers Chennai Super Kings in their last game, Sunrisers face Rajasthan Royals and Knight Riders in remaining two league matches.

But the good thing for Kings XI is that they will be high on confidence coming into Thursday's game at the HPCA stadium, after having annihilated RCB by seven wickets on Tuesday while chasing a challenging 174 for five.

Kings XI would be hoping to put up similar performances in their last two games in order to keep their play-off hopes alive.

Going into tomorrow's game, Kings XI would take heart from the fact its skipper Adam Gilchrist has marked his return to form in style with an unbeaten 85 off just 54 balls against RCB on yesterday.

The Daredevils, on the other hand, are already out of contention for a berth in the playoffs and have only pride to play for.

The Daredevils are placed second-last in the points table with as many as 11 defeats from 14 games and have nothing to lose.

Delhi's top order has failed for inexplicable reasons. Neither Virender Sehwag nor captain Mahela Jayawardene have lived up to their reputations. Australian left-hander David Warner is the only one who has done his bit.

As far as their bowling is concerned, they have not been able to fire in unison.

Teams from:

Kings XI Punjab: Adam Gilchrist (Capt. & wk), Mandeep Singh, Luke Pomersbach, David Miller, Manan Vohra, David Hussey, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, Harmeet Singh, Parvinder Awana, Azhar Mahmood, Bipul Sharma, Siddharth Chitnis, Manpreet Gony, Gurkeerat Mann, Shaun Marsh, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Nitin Saini, Sandeep Sharma, Rajagopal Sathish, Sunny Singh, Paul Valthaty.

Delhi Daredevils: Mahela Jayawardene (Capt.), Virender Sehwag, David Warner, Umesh Yadav, Manpreet Juneja, Ashish Nehra, Naman Ojha (wk), Irfan Pathan, Andre Russell, Kedar Jadhav (wk), Ajit Agarkar, Johan Botha, Unmukt Chand, Morne Morkel, Shahbaz Nadeem, Ben Rohrer, Sidharth Kaul, Jeevan Mendis, Yogesh Nagar, Sujeet Nayak, Pavan Negi, Aristh Singhvi, Roelof van der Merwe, Venugopal Rao and Gulam Bodi.

Match facts
Thursday May 16, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (1430 GMT)