13 March,2010 07:24 PM IST | | Agencies
Stung by the opening loss to last season laggards Kolkata Knight Riders, defending champions Deccan Chargers have little time to dwell on the setback as they take on local favourites Chennai Super Kings in their second Indian Premier League match on Sunday.
The Chargers have gotten off to a worst possible start as they succumbed to a shocking 11-run defeat to Knight Riders last night.
And it won't get any easy when they face off against Mahendra Singh Dhoni's Super Kings.
The Adma Gilchirst-led Chargers, however, would look to start afresh tomorrow. On the strengths of the teams, Chennai have better batting strength bolstered by the inclusion of South African all-rounder Justin Kemp but lack the required punch in their bowling attack.
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To offset this weak link, Dhoni has been predicting that a sizeable total on board would help his team to come out winners.
The Chargers inflicted a seven wicket defeat on Chennai in their last meeting here in 2008. Chennai would look to exploit the shattered morale of their rivals through hard hitters like Matthew Hayden, Suresh Raina, S Badrinath and Dhoni himself.
This quartet has been the mainstay in the Chennai's scheme of things during the last two IPLs and Kemp and opener Parthiv Patel would add to their batting strength.
As for the Deccan Chargers, their batting too looks solid with hard-hitting skipper Gilchrist, his former Australia teammate Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs, V V S Laxman and Rohit Sharma. The star willow-wielders in both the sides are set to make it a batting contest tomorrow.
Chennai's bowling looks weak with all-rounders Andrew Flintoff and Jacob Oram unavailable due to injuries. Dhoni, however, maintained that he has more options in the team in the bowling department and he is not unduly worried about it.
"As a team we rely more on our batting strength. We have strong options in bowlers like Manpreet Goni, L Balaji and Sudip Tyagi in our ranks. In the past, they have done well for us. We will try to get the best out of these bowling options," he said.
Chargers would also have to make adjustments due to the absence of two West Indian imports in Kemar Roach and Dwayne Smith.
The teams have decided to announce their playing eleven tomorrow as they were denied practice today because of the inauguration of the Secretariat building close to the ground by the Prime Minister.
