Rising Pune Supergiants will look to get back to winning ways when they host the Delhi Daredevils at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday. RPS are out of contention for a place in the playoffs.
Having lost nine out of their 12 matches, Dhoni and co. will be desperate to spoil the parties of the teams who are battling for a spot in IPL 2016 playoffs.
The Daredevils on the other hand, have lost three out of their last five matches and are wobbling at the wrong time, after what was a promising start to the season. Almost every player in that side credited their mentor Rahul Dravid's role and said that they want to qualify for the last four of the tournament after three years.
Rising Pune Supergiants have no injury concerns, but MS Dhoni will want to get the combination right for this game against the Daredevils on Tuesday. The captain himself had a sore back, but was seen playing against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) without any discomfort.
It will be interesting to see if Dhoni sticks with Irfan Pathan, who did not have a happy time in the last game. If Pathan is left out, Rajat Bhatia could come back into the playing XI. However, Dhoni is someone, who does not like to change things much and is likely to go with the same XI against DD.
Adam Zampa, Murugan Ashwin and R Ashwin are likely to form a three-pronged spin attack for RPS.
Meanwhile, the Daredevils' skipper Zaheer Khan's fitness has been an issue throughout the tournament. However he has been bowling pretty decently, with an economy rate of 8.02 in IPL 2016. If Zaheer fails to gain match fitness, then JP Duminy will lead the charge.
Imran Tahir and Shahbaz Nadeem were ineffective in the last game and they could make way for Carlos Brathwaite and Pawan Negi in the playing XI.
Expected playing XI: Rising Pune Supergiants: Ajinkya Rahane, Usman Khwaja, George Bailey, Saurabh Tiwary, MS Dhoni (C & wk), Thisara Perera, Irfan Pathan, R Ashwin, Adam Zampa, Murugan Ashwin, Ashok Dinda.
Delhi Daredevils: Quinton de Kock (wk), Mayank Agarwal, Sanju Samson, Karun Nair, Rishabh Pant, JP Duminy, Chris Morris, Pawan Negi, Carlos Brathwaite, Amit Mishra, Zaheer Khan (C).
