Daijiworld Media Network

Pune, May 19 : Hello, and a warm welcome to the final day of the league stage. We start off with the battle for the wooden spoon as Pune take on Delhi. Will Pune repeat their 2012 performance and take the last place again? Or will Delhi, with all their big guns finish last?

Pune have won the toss and elected to bat

Mahela: 'We have worked hard, we did not take the chances in some of our previous games. It has been a great experience. Bharat Chipli gets a game today. The wicket has a bit of grass on it.'

Finch: 'We will bat. The wicket looks a bit dry. Dinda is back in place of Ishwar Pandey. We are fighting for the wooden spoon. There is a lot riding on this match. We have a great bunch of guys, we have stood together as a team.'

Teams:

Delhi (Playing XI): Mahela Jayawardene(c), Bharat Chipli, Virender Sehwag, David Warner, Ben Rohrer, Muralidharen Gautam(w), Irfan Pathan, Morne Morkel, Siddarth Kaul, Umesh Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem

Pune (Playing XI): Robin Uthappa(w), Aaron Finch(c), Manish Pandey, Yuvraj Singh, Luke Wright, Angelo Mathews, Raiphi Gomez, Wayne Parnell, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ali Murtaza, Ashok Dinda

Preview

Bangalore's win over Chennai on Saturday has left Hyderabad facing a must-win situation against Kolkata in order to make it to the play-offs. While both Bangalore and Hyderabad have 18 points each, the Sun-network owned franchise have a poor net run-rate, which means that they need to win against the defending champions to progress to the next round. Kolkata's title defence ended after their loss to Pune on May 15 but the Shah Rukh Khan owned team, which is placed third from the bottom, have an opportunity to sign off their disastrous campaign on a victorious note.

Hyderabad:

Hyderabad have a lethal bowling attack comprising world's best Dale Steyn, Indian pacer Ishant Sharma, wily spinners Amit Mishra and Karan Sharma, Sri Lanka's Thisara Perera and West Indies captain Darren Sammy - all of whom have been a nightmare for rival batsmen in this edition of tournament. The hosts took full advantage of the wicket in Hyderabad that supports the bowlers and even a modest total became tough for the rivals to chase. Except for the match against Chennai on May 8, the Hyderabad have not lost a single game at home thanks to their combined bowling prowess. The most recent proof of this was the Rajasthan collapse at 113 while chasing 137 runs. Steyn, Mishra and Perera came up with superb two-wicket hauls each to tame the Rajasthan. Given the strength of their bowling, even a minor error by Kolkata would enable the hosts to get the required victory.

However, the Hyderabad batting appears lacking in consistency as their top order batsmen including Shikhar Dhawan, Cameron White and captain Kumar Sangakkara have not given a good account of themselves. Though Dhawan has made a couple of big scores, he needs to fire more often so that pressure is not piled up on the lower-order batsmen. Sangakkara has had a poor run with the bat in the series leading to White captaining the side, but the Australian T20 specialist is yet to come up with his best.

Young Hanuma Vihari, Thisara Perera, Parthiv Patel and Sammy have been shouldering the responsibility to steer the innings. Biplab Samantray, who has not had too many chances in the league stage, put up a great show - a 46-ball 55 - on Friday. Hyderabad will be hoping that the top order comes up with a substantial contribution in the match against Kolkata and make the job slightly easier for their bowlers.

Previous results: Defeated Rajasthan by 23 runs, Lost to Mumbai by 7 wickets, Defeated Punjab by 30 runs.

Kolkata:

Despite having seasoned players in the form of Gautam Gambhir, all-rounders Yusuf Pathan and Jacques Kallis, Ryan ten Doeschate and L Balaji, Kolkata have not been able to make good strides in the tournament with inconsistency having a big role to play. They messed up their chase against Pune on May 15 though Pathan and ten Doeschate were in impressive form and almost took their team to victory with a 98-run partnership. Pathan, who scored 72 runs in that match, had a rather unusual dismissal of obstructing the field, the first in an Indian T20 League match.

Manvinder Bisla, apart from a couple of good knocks, has not set the tournament on fire, while the likes of Kallis, Morgan and Pathan have been largely inconsistent. Gautam Gambhir, after a good start this season, has struggled for form in the latter stages. Kolkata will be hoping that the batters come to the party for one last time as they look to sign off on a high.

In the bowling department, Sunil Narine has been their top-performer, having picked up 22 wickets from 15 games, including two 4 wicket hauls. Kallis too has been amongst the wickets while Sri Lankan spinner Sachitra Senanayake has done a tidy job with the ball. On the Hyderabad pitch, that will aid the spinners, Narine and Senanayake will have a key role to play if Kolkata are to play party-poppers for the home team.

Previous results: Lost to Pune by 7 runs, Defeated Bangalore by 5 wickets, Defeated Pune by 46 runs.