Gujarat Lions have struggled to gain any sort of momentum so far in the Indian Premier League. After two losses in as many games, they will be desperate to get a win under their belt.

Heading into their game against Rising Pune Supergiant, Gujarat will be buoyed by the availability of all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who joined the squad on Wednesday.

The India player is expected to play against RPS. Jadeja was unavailable for the first two encounters due to a finger injury.

With Jadeja back, Gujarat will back themselves against the Pune outfit, which has been struggling and come into the game on back of two back-to-back defeats. Last season, Gujarat had managed to beat Pune both times the two sides met each other.

Skipper Steve Smith had skipped the team’s previous game due to a stomach illness. Former captain MS Dhoni has drawn flak for his miserable form that has seen him score just 28 runs in three games.

Time: 8 pm

Venue: Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot

TV: Sony Max, Sony Six, Sony ESPN and their HD channels

Results in 2016

Played: 2

GL won: 2

RPS won: 0

Gujarat Lions

  • This will be Gujarat Lions skipper Suresh Raina’s 150th IPL game. No other player has played as many games in the league. With 4171 runs, he is also the league’s highest run-scorer.
  • Gujarat Lions have lost four of the six games played at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.

“They have a strong batting line-up. We need to identify their weak areas and target those. We need to bowl really well and restrict them to a low total. We have a good batting line-up, so even if we have a big target, we’re capable of chasing it down. We need to bat deep and try and save runs in the field too.”

Ravindra Jadeja on match against Rising Pune Supergiant.

Squad: Suresh Raina (c), Ravindra Jadeja, James Faulkner, Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Dwayne Smith, Dinesh Karthik, Dhawal Kulkarni, Praveen Kumar, Andrew Tye, Ishan Kishan, Pradeep Sangwan, Shivil Koushik, Shadab Bashir Jakati, Jaydev Shah, Manpreet Gony, Nathu Singh, Jason Roy, Munaf Patel, Chirag Suri, Akshdeep Nath, Basil Thampi, Shubham Agarwal, Tejas Baroka, Pratham Singh, Shelley Sanjay Kumar Shaurya, Dwayne Bravo.

Rising Pune Supergiant

  • Steve Smith has been dismissed four times by Jadeja in eight innings. No other bowler has dismissed Smith more than twice in the IPL.

“I am not bothered about his (Dhoni’s) form. He is a class player, and we have just played three games, so he will be fine (with the bat) in the tournament.”

RPS skipper Steve Smith on MS Dhoni’s form.

Squad: Steve Smith (captain), MS Dhoni, Ajinkya Rahane, Faf du Plessis, Ben Stokes, Imran Tahir, Mayank Agarwal, Manoj Tiwary, Milind Tandon, Usman Khawaja, Ankush Bains, Rahul Tripathi, Saurabh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, Lockie Ferguson, Daniel Christian, Baba Aparajith, Rajat Bhatia, Jaydev Unadkat, Ashok Dinda, Ishwar Pandey, Adam Zampa, Deepak Chahar, Jaskaran Singh.