Deccan Chargers need to perk up

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Deccan Chargers, who have been unable to lift their performances need to shake off the lethargy and pull their socks up if they are to get past Pune Warriors at the Barabati Stadium here on Tuesday.

After a resounding win against the Warriors in the away match, the Chargers slipped back to their old ways, losing to Mumbai Indians on Sunday night.

The IPL-2 champions’ trump-card —— Dale Steyn (11 wickets from six matches) continues to bowl with venom every time he is given the ball. But lack of adequate support at the other hand has hurt the Chargers deeply.

While rookies —- Ankit Sharma, Veer Pratap Singh and Ashish Reddy —— have come up with a decent show, Amit Mishra’s patchy displays has been their biggest obstacle.

The Bulls’ batting has revolved around Shikhar Dhawan. The left-hander (253 runs from seven innings) has given his team starts on literally every occasion this season, but the rest have failed to up the tempo in the middle and the end overs.

Barring the brilliance of Cameron White against Pune last week, the middle-order comprising Kumar Sangakkara, Daniel Christian and J.P. Duminy have failed to live up to the expectations.

The Warriors too have their share of problems. While Robin Uthappa, skipper Sourav Ganguly, Jesse Ryder have been amongst runs, the run-rate needs to perk up. Uthappa has 279 runs under his belt from 9 innings at a strike-rate of 117.7.

But the arrival of Aussie skipper Michael Clarke is a big boost to the Warriors and remains to be seen if he replaces Ryder in the eleven.

All-rounder Steve Smith has been on the money, playing those cameos, and is a livewire on the field.

Pune’s bowling, barring overseas import Alfonso Thomas, has looked ordinary. Ashish Nehra, Rahul Sharma and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar have got them the breakthroughs, but have been on the expensive side.

With the race to the semis heating up, both these sides are aware that a win is a must to keep their hopes afloat and the Chargers will look step out of the rut.