Sports News: Royals to clash with Chargers

KIMBERLEY: Deccan Chargers and Rajasthan Royals will fight to maintain their position among the top four when they meet in Indian Premier League (IPL) at De Beers Diamond Oval here Monday. The clash will also see two former Australian team mates, Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne, captaining their respective side.Both teams have suffered losses in their last matches Friday. Defending champions Rajasthan faced their second defeat to Chennai Super Kings in this edition and with 11 points are placed third in the standings. Chargers, who started the tournament on a high, lost a close match to Kings XI Punjab and are placed fourth with 10 points from 9 matches. For Rajasthan Royals, it is the inexperience in the batting side that let them down while they still need an extra pacer to strengthen their pace attack. Yusuf Pathan remains the best bet for the Royals apart from Graeme Smith and Naman Ojha. Good news for Royals batting is their last year’s prolific scorer Swapnil Asnodkar looked to regain his touch during his brief innings against Super Kings. However, Royals’ batting pales before the Chargers. Starting from skipper Gilchrist, the Chargers have Herschelle Gibbs, Rohit Sharma, Dwayne Smith and together they are capable of ripping apart any pace attack. With Andrew Symonds joining them, the Chargers have the strongest line-up in the tournament. The team has purple cap holder, R.P. Singh, leading with 15 wickets. He has been amply supported by talented Pragyan Ojha with Rohit, too, turning out to be handy with the ball. The Chargers definitely miss the presence of a competitive paceman in Fidel Edwards even though compatriot Dwayne Smith has come good with both bat as well as the ball. It is important for the Chargers to get their act together when they meet the Royals. Gilchrist has already made it clear that they will be taking each and every game seriously. "We will go with an intention of winning. The competition is still so close. I don’t think any team walks away knowing that they are more secure, or knowing that they have a very good chance of making the semis," Gilchrist said. The Royals have not lost to the Chargers so far, but then skipper Warne will have to come up with another master plan to tame the talented bunch of the chargers.