IPL 2016, RPS vs KKR Playing 11: Today's Probable XI for Rising Pune Supergiants

One of the two new franchises to have joined the IPL this year, the Rising Pune Supergiants, have made quite an inauspicious start to their debut season. After winning comprehensively against defending champions Mumbai Indians in their first game, RPS have been on a losing streak with 3 successive defeats.

Their opponents for Sunday, though, have a completely different story to tell. The Kolkata Knight Riders have been in rampaging form, winning 3 out of their 4 matches. Nearly everything has clicked for them so far and it will be a really tough task for the Pune team to pose a challenge.

The match between these two sides at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune promises to be a good one. Here's our prediction on the expected line-up for the Rising Pune Supergiants:

Batting

The RPS batting in their debut edition of the IPL has primarily revolved around their two openers, Faf du Plessis and Ajinkya Rahane. du Plessis is Pune's leading run-scorer in the tournament with 172 runs in 4 matches at an average of 43. Rahane, on the other hand, has 156 runs in his kitty at an average of 52 and a healthy strike rate of above 134.

The three other big names in the batting line-up - Kevin Pietersen, MS Dhoni and Steven Smith - have not been consistent enough. Pietersen, Dhoni and Smith have all played 4 matches and have scored 73, 64 and 47 runs respectively. To add to it, Pietersen picked up an injury in the Supergiants' previous match against RCB.

The batting unit of RPS needs to do far better in order to keep them alive in the race for the play-offs.

All-rounders

The Rising Pune Supergiants have a lot of all-rounders in their ranks such as Thisara Perera, Mitchell Marsh, Irfan Pathan and Rajat Bhatia. However, none of them seems to be clicking for the Pune side at the moment. Perhaps the best of the lot has been Perera, who claimed 3 wickets and scored a brisk 34 against RCB in their previous game.

Pathan has only played 1 match so far and scored 2 runs while he was trusted by skipper Dhoni for just 1 over with the ball. Marsh was decent with the ball but made no impression with the bat whereas Bhatia has been used more as a bowler.

The all-rounders will need to step up if Pune are looking to win more matches going forward.

Bowling

The pace bowlers have not been doing the job expected of them as they are conceding far too many runs for MS Dhoni's liking. The leader of the RPS attack, Ishant Sharma, has an economy rate of marginally under 10 and has picked up just 3 wickets. RP Singh, too, had been tried for a couple of games but suffered at the hands of the batsmen.

Comparatively, though, the spin attack has been quite impressive, particularly due to the exploits of newcomer Murugan Ashwin who has 6 wickets already. The senior Ashwin, too, has bowled economically despite having claimed just 1 wicket.

The Supergiants require a lot of improvement in the bowling department if they want to find a way to win games.

Probable Playing XI – Ajinkya Rahane, Faf du Plessis, Steve Smith, MS Dhoni (c) (wk), Albie Morkel, Thisara Perera, Rajat Bhatia, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murugan Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Ankit Sharma.