Hello and welcome to today’s newsletter.

Finally our wait is over and IPL got off to wonderful start with opening ceremony and Ravi Shastri’s enthusiastic and energetic commentary, I guess we all been missing that energy in our life. Good to have him back. Although he does commentary in other cricket matches but his enthusiasm is at next level in IPL.

Today’s newsletter is slightly longer as we have 2 matches today.

Match 1 Summary

Defending Champions Gujarat Titans started the TATA IPL 2023 on a winning note by beating Chennai Super Kings in the opening match in Ahmedabad.

Pandya won the toss and opted for bowling. Gaikwad played beautifully but missed his century, Moeen chipped in, our own Dhoni Thalaiva had a quick cameo and Chennai Super Kings set a decent target of 179 to win.

Gujrat titans got off to a good start, Gill scored 63 continuing his sublime form this year, Saha and Sai (impact player as Kane got injured while fielding) contributed but star was Rashid who tilted the game GT’s favour in penultimate over.

Brief Score: Gujarat Titans 182/5 in 19.2 overs (Shubman Gill 63, Vijay Shankar 27) beat Chennai Super Kings 178/7 in 20 overs (Ruturaj Gaikwad 92, Rashid Khan 2/26, Mohammad Shami 2/29)

Player of the Match: Rashid Khan

Today’s Match Preview

Match 2 - PUNJAB KINGS vs KOLKATA KNIGHTS RIDER

Punjab and Kolkata had a disappointing season last year but they are back with new captain and coach combination - Shikhar Dhawan and Trevor Bayliss for Punjab, and Nitish Rana and Chandrakant Pandit for KKR.

They are missing some key personnel for initial matches but should give them opportunity to try out few combinations and see what works for them. It will be a home match for Punjab in Mohali.

Punjab Kings Probable XI: 1 Shikhar Dhawan (capt), 2 Prabhsimran Singh, 3 Bhanuka Rajapaksa, 4 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 5 Sikandar Raza, 6 Shahrukh Khan, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Rishi Dhawan, 9 Harpreet Brar, 10 Rahul Chahar, 11 Arshdeep Singh

Kolkata Knights Riders Probable XI: 1 N Jagadeesan, 2 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 3 Venkatesh Iyer, 4 Nitish Rana (capt), 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Sunil Narine, 8 Shardul Thakur 9 Lockie Ferguson, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Varun Chakravarthy/ Suyash Sharma

Match 3 - LUCKNOW SUPER GIANTS vs DELHI CAPITALS

Lucknow had a great inaugural year when they made it to the playoffs last year and today is going to be their first match at their home ground.

Delhi are without their regular captain Rishabh Pant as he had a freak accident last year and still recovering. David Warner will take the reign this year.

Lucknow Super Giants Probable XI: 1 KL Rahul (capt & wk), 2 Kyle Mayers, 3 Deepak Hooda, 4 Nicholas Pooran, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Ayush Badoni, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Prerak Mankad, 9 Jaydev Unadkat, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Ravi Bishnoi

Delhi Capitals Probable bat-first XI: 1 David Warner (capt), 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Mitchell Marsh, 4 Rilee Rossouw, 5 Sarfaraz Khan (wk), 6 Rovman Powell, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Aman Khan/Kamlesh Nagarkoti, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Chetan Sakariya, 11 Khaleel Ahmed

New Rule - Impact Player

As we all must have heard about impact player rule for this IPL season. Just a quick summary below:

The IPL has introduced the Impact Player rule this year. The rule allows a team to bring in an Impact Player at any point in an innings to replace a player from the XI after the toss.

The four overseas players limit will still apply in the match; so if teams are already starting with four overseas players in the starting XI, then the Impact Player can only be an Indian player.

This rule should provide more playing opportunities to Indian players.

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A fun fact

The longest cricket match ever played lasted for 14 days! It was a Test match between England and Australia that was played in 1939. The match was drawn after 608 overs of play.

From my keyboard to yours

Thanks for reading. When you signed up for this newsletter, my promise to you was to keep it short, informative, and fun read. What did you think of today’s newsletter? Reply to this email and let me know what else you would like me to add.

Until next time!

Gaurav