The battle of the mighty and the brainiacs takes place today at the iconic MA Chidambaram Stadium and it’s going to be a high voltage clash. The Knights are coming at the back of a fantastic victory against Delhi Capitals bulldozing them the most destructive way and the Kings from Chennai would be wanting to regroup and show their prowess after two consecutive defeats against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals.
Kolkata Knight Riders had finally Starc coming to the game with 2/25 against Delhi Capitals and would like to decimate the Kings as how he had performed last match. Instating Gambhir has instilled more and more confidence into Sunil Narine and Andre Russell as they have come back to be what they were before: the beasts. Every department of their team is ticking things right and they would want to maintain the momentum and move forward.
How you taste victories is how you taste defeats. New captain Ruturaj Gaikwad has been tasting it in a fashion he would have not expected and these two losses would somehow haunt him going forward in the tournament. The batter Ruturaj Gaikwad is slowly getting shadowed by the captain Ruturaj Gaikwad as he has been sub-par and would need to ensure his batting and captaincy do not cross roads at any instance. The bowling of CSK has been a worry and they would need to ensure “economical” spells are being bowled. Shivam Dube has been the only positive and others would need to step up including Ravindra who has been returning with poor dismissals in the last two matches. Hope the return to their den would inject in them much more needed confidence and they would be back in their winning ways.
Probable XI:
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Rachin Ravindra*, Ajinkya Rahane, Shivam Dube, Daryll Mitchell*/Moeen Ali*, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (WK), Mustafizur Rahman*, Tushar Despande, Deepak Chahar, Maheesh Theekshana* / Matheesha Pathirana*
Impact Subs: Sameer Rizvi / Mukesh Choudhary
Kolkata Knight Riders: Sunil Narine*, Phil Salt (WK)*, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell*, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Vaibhav Arora, Mitchell Starc*, Varun Chakravarthy,
Impact Subs: Suyash Sharma / Harshit Rana
Weather and Pitch Report:
The Chennai pitch has favored batsmen in the past two games, but it's not a track where teams can consistently score 200 runs. The weather forecast indicates clear skies with a temperature around 30 degrees Celsius. The humidity is expected to increase from 74% to 80% during the match.
Stats Corner:
- Both teams have faced each other 29 times since the inception of the T20 league. While Chennai Super Kings have won 18 times, the Knights have managed victories for 10 times. One match was a draw.
- Ravindra Jadeja has struck exactly 200 fours and 100 sixes in the IPL to date and he is just two catches short of reaching 100 catches in IPL.
- H2H overall of Dhoni vs Narine:
Balls faced: 91
Runs scored: 48
Boundaries hit: 2
Sixes scored: 0
Dismissals: 2
Strike Rate: 52.7
- Venkatesh Iyer is just 4 sixes away from completing 50 IPL sixes.
- Most wickets for CSK vs KKR: Ravindra Jadeja (17 wickets)
Most wickets for KKR vs CSK: Sunil Narine (22 wickets)
(Source: Cricket fanatic friends from Bouncer Avenue)
Match Details:
Time: 7: 30 PM IST
Venue: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Live broadcast: Star Sports Network
Live streaming: JioCinema app
Dream XI Team:
