Odishatv Bureau

Dubai: Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) on Sunday won the toss and chose to bat against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Both sides are looking to get their second win of the season with three-time champions CSK sitting at the bottom of the table. With KXIP's skipper KL Rahul's 63 runs, the team scored 178 at a loss of 4 wickets. CSK's winning target is 179 runs.

Kings XI Punjab went off to a terrific start. KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal stitched a 61-run stand for the first wicket before Chawla came in and dented this camaraderie. The leg spinner removed Mayank Agarwal (26 off 19 balls) and gave a bit of a relief to CSK.

Ravindra Jadeja was the other bowler who frustrated KXIP and removed Mandeep Singh(27) in the 12th over. Rahul continues fighting against CSK attack alongside Nicholas Pooran.

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KXIP have made three big changes to the team for the clash against Chennai Super Kings. They have inducted Mandeep Singh, Harpreet Brar, and Chris Jordan in place for Karun Nair, K Gowtham, James Neesham.

CSK, on the other hand, are going unchanged. Prior to this game, Dhoni and his team have been struggling immensely in this tournament. They have been lagging the spark they had in the past seasons.

Chennai Super Kings: Faf du Plessis, Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, M.S. Dhoni (captain & wicketkeeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Piyush Chawla

Kings XI Punjab: K.L. Rahul (captain & wicketkeeper), Mayank Agarwal, Nicholas Pooran, Glenn Maxwell, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Chris Jordan, Harpreet Brar, Ravi Bishnoi, Sheldon Cottrell, Mohammed Shami.

Former India opener Gautam gambhir has jumped to the defence of off-colour Chennai Super Kings (CSK) all-rounder Shane Watson, saying he would give him four to five more IPL matches to help him regain form.

CSK are at the bottom of the IPL table this season after three defeats in four matches. Their batting has looked rusty and there are many calling for opener Watson to be dropped, among other things.

However, former India captain Gambhir feels it is a bad idea to drop Watson considering he has been a consistent performer and the CSK's batting lineup as a whole is struggling.

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"I would never drop Shane Watson, because their entire batting order looks so rusty. Kedar Jadhav looks rusty. Ambati Rayudu looks rusty," Gambhir said in a chat show on ESPNCricinfo.

"I know Shane Watson is not in the best of form, imagine replacing Shane Watson with Ruturaj Gaekwad? Obviously, he is a young, developing cricketer. Or Murali Vijay? I would back Shane Watson for another four-five games."

(With Agency Inputs)

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