Ajit Agarkar and James Faulkner pick their XIs for Super Kings v Royals (4:31)
Toss Chennai Super Kings chose to bowl v Rajasthan Royals
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Ajinkya Rahane called correctly as Rajasthan Royals elected to bowl in Pune, Chennai Super Kings’ new home ground for the remainder of the season. The MCA Stadium, incidentally, has also played host to the Royals in the past.
Suresh Raina, who missed his first ever IPL match earlier this week because of a calf injury, recovered in time and was included at the expense of M Vijay. Super Kings also handed legspinner Karn Sharma his first game of the season in place of Harbhajan Singh.
Karn, who had played a key role during Mumbai Indians’ title triumph last year, was bought by Super Kings in the auction earlier this year for INR 5 crore (USD 781000 approx).
Royals strengthened their batting by including allrounder Stuart Binny in place of Dhawal Kulkarni. The team management also made a change at the top of the order, with South Africa wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaasen replacing D’Arcy Short. The Australian batsman has so far managed only 65 runs in four innings this season.
Klaasen was signed ahead of the season as a replacement for their designated captain Steven Smith, who had pulled out of the tournament after the ball-tampering row in South Africa.
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Ambati Rayudu, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Sam Billings (wk), 5 MS Dhoni, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Deepak Chahar, 9 Karn Sharma, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Imran Tahir
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 Heinrich Klassen, 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Rahul Tripathi, 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 K Gowtham, 8 Shreyas Gopal, 9 Stuart Binny, 10 Jaydev Unadkat, 11 Ben Laughlin
Source: ESPN Crickinfo