Match 16 of the Indian Premier League 2022 will be contested between Punjab Kings and Gujarat Titans at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.
The Titans are currently placed fourth in the points table with four points under their belt. They have won both of their first two games – they beat Lucknow Super Giants by five wickets in their first game and followed that with a 14-run win over the Delhi Capitals in the next game.
Against Delhi, Shubman Gill top-scored with a knock of 84 runs but found little support from the other batsmen. Gujarat ended their innings with 171 runs, which was successfully defended on the back of Lockie Ferguson’s bowling masterclass. The pacer picked up four wickets in as many overs while conceding only 28 runs.
Punjab Kings, meanwhile, are fifth in the points table with same number of points as Gujarat, but a poorer net run-rate. They beat RCB by five wickets in the first game, lost to KKR in the second game but bounced back to win the third game against CSK.
Against Chennai, they put up 180 on the board batting first, with major contribution coming from Liam Livingstone (60). Later, three wickets by Rahul Chahar and two each by Livingstone and Vaibhav Arora helped PBKS successfully defend the target.
Both Punjab and Gujarat have played good cricket in IPL 2022 so far, but in can be noted that Punjab’s batting has been ordinary in all of their three games and that is one department in which they could be edged by Gujarat in the upcoming game.
Predicted XI for both teams
Punjab Kings
Jonny Bairstow, Shikhar Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Mayank Agarwal (c), Shahrukh Khan, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Kagiso Rabada, Odean Smith, Vaibhav Arora, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh
Gujarat Titans
Matthew Wade (wk), Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya (c), Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, David Miller, Rashid Khan, Abhinav Manohar, Varun Aaron, Lockie Ferguson, Mohammed Shami
Image credit: IPL
