Hyderabad: As their poor run continues in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL), Deccan Chargers who are at the bottom of the points table shift their campaign to their Uppal home ground here as they face Kings XI Punjab Tuesday hoping to break the jinx.
With just five points from 11 matches, Deccan Chargers are at the bottom of the table with the team's morale at its lowest. The team has lost eight matches with its both victories coming against Pune Warriors while one match was washed out.
The Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium at Uppal does not offer any great hopes for the team, if one goes by the teams track record. It has lost 13 of the 14 IPl matches it played here since 2008.
In the inaugural editions, Deccan Chargers lost all their seven matches here. In the next edition it went on to win the championship played in South Africa. The stadium could not host a single match in 2010 due to agitation over separate Telangana state. They lost six of the seven matches played here last year. Their lone victory came against Royal Challengers.
The stadium is so jinxed for the home team that this time it preferred to launch its campaign from Visakhapatnam and Cuttack. The two venues hosted four of the eight home matches. Even this failed to rescue the team as it lost three matches. However, the official reason given by the team management was that it wanted to host the matches in the catchment centres.
The team improved its performance during the last few matches but it failed to earn the points to remain in contest for a berth in the play-offs.
Playing four of their last five matches here, Chargers are likely to go all out to escape the ignominy of finishing at the bottom. Captain Kumar Sangakkara, who scored only one half-century in the eight matches, has an uphill task of boosting the morale of the team.
Bastmen Shikhar Dhawan, Cameron White and pace spearhead Dale Steyn are some of the bright spots in the otherwise disappointing performance of Chargers. Dhawan is the highest run getter for Chargers with 375 runs from 10 matches followed by White, who has 337 runs from nine games.
Kings XI Punjab will be looking forward to bag two points to remain in contention for play-offs. With 10 points from 11 matches, it is currently at the seven position on the points table and a win here will propel it ahead of Chennai Super Kings.
As both the teams are facing each other for the first time in this edition, an interesting battle appears on cards. (IANS)
