IPL 2011

Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist would have faced each other a humpty number of times with one behind the stumps and the other on the opposite side as a bowler bamboozling the opposition but on Thursday Gilly might have to face the legendry spinner Warney himself without the gloves for a change.

The Kings XI Punjab now takes on the Rajasthan Royals at Mohali on Thursday. Kings XI have to get their bowling acts into the right place before they can go out positively hoping to pull off a win. They will be riding high on confidence after their win against the Deccan Chargers. But this team is banking heavily on Praveen Kumar and Ryan Harris. It’s high time the Indian bowlers prove their mettle. Chawla has to get his spin going and Mclaren has to pull up his socks to cement himself as the 4^th foreign player. Their batting unit though is looking immensely strong with a solid batting opening pair in terms of young Valthaty and Gilchrist. The middle order looks good with Dinesh Karthik and Abhishek Nayar and looks good to chase down even a challenging score of 180 plus.

Rajasthan Royals on the other hand will look some special works from their foreign players. They won two and lost two matches so far and even shared a point with Royal Challengers. Now they will have to step up and get their winning momentum back on track because only 4 teams will make the upper cut to the semis out of 10 teams. They will be happy with Botha and Dravid returning from injuries. They now all wait in the dugout to see some fireworks from the in-form batsman Shane Watson. But the local Indian players to have their task cut out as they prove vital in adding the extra nudge a cushion for the team to relax a bit. Siddharth Trivedi and Warne have been exceptional but the likes of Rahane, Abhishek Raut, Pankaj Singh should come into play for some turnaround for the Royals. Shaun Tait is left plundering after his fierce opening spell of 1 or 2 overs. His pace will be more tested in Mohali which suits pace and bounce.

It’s going to be another exciting match on cards at the PCA stadium and let’s hope for another thriller that can spice up things this edition of IPL.

Tags: Adam Gilchrist, Indian Premier League, IPL, IPL 2011, IPL 4, Kings XI Punjab, KXIP, Mohali, PCA Stadium, Rajasthan Royals, RR, Shane Warne