It’s Friday and the weekend has officially started!!! The Kings from the Chepauk will clash with the Risers from the city of biriyani, Hyderabad and it will be a match to look forward as a master tactician will be facing an upcoming successful captain in the recent times who’s breathing fire in his batting too.
Overview:
Chennai Super Kings: The Kings tasted success against RCB last week after huffing puffing throughout the match, thanks to Matheesa Pathirana who didn’t crumble under pressure and made the unthinkable happen. The hurt which happened last time in Chepauk when Sandeep Sharma clinching under pressure would be a thing to be noticed and the Kings from Chennai would be wary of what lies ahead of them and would move the pieces cautiously. With injuries stacked up in order, MS Dhoni would need a lot of thinking to ensure no further damage is caused in the team and take this unit to the top. Even though Dube has been touch and go, Dhoni has full confidence on him to deliver and would be rooting for him to do more better than what he is in now. Dhoni was all happy with the slinger Pathirana and would be rooting for him to do well and the death overs conundrum still haunts the team. Dwaine Pretorius entry to the team would be a difficult job now due to Pathirana showing what he has in store and would need to wait more to ensure he gets the nod ahead of anyone as he can be a solvation to the jigsaw puzzle of death overs issue. Maheesh Theekshana would need to step up more than what he has in store and Dhoni may use him in Power Platy to tackle Harry Brook who would struggle against spin.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: The Risers from the city of Hyderabad would be raring to prove what they have in store after their defeat against Mumbai last match. Youngsters Abhishek Sharma and Abdul Samad have been a disappointment until now and they would need to step up big time to show that they were correct to be retained by the franchise. Bowling from Sundar and Natarajan has also been a disappointment and would need a big change inn the dynamics and skills they possess. The whole unit under Lara would need to re-jig themselves and have their drawing boards written and rubbed many times so that they can move ahead in the points table and move towards the playoffs. Mayank Markande is in the best form possible and Chepauk, being the spin heaven, would be a great opportunity for him to showcase how he fared when he came into limelight in his first season in IPL during 2019.
Injury and replacements:
- Sisanda Magala suffered split webbing when he fielded against Rajasthan Royals and would be missing few more matches in IPL 2023.
- Deepak Chahar would need one or two more weeks for to return to action in the IPL 2023.
Probable XIII (including impact players):
Chennai Super Kings: Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (C & WK), Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana, Matheesha Pathirana, Akash Singh (Impact Players: Ambati Rayudu, Dwaine Pretorius, Shaik Rasheed, Rajvardhan Hangagrekar, Simarjeet Singh).
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram (C), Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klassen (WK), Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, T Natarajan, (Impact Players: Vivrant Sharma, Abdul Samad, Umran Malik, Kartik Tyagi, Samarth Vyas).
Interesting Facts:
- Head to Head: In the 18 meetings between the two sides in IPL since 2008, CSK has the advantage with 13 wins against SRH, who have won just 5 times against the Chennai-based franchise. In the last 6 meetings, it's 4-2 in favour of CSK. In IPL 2022, both won a game each.
- Rahul Tripathi is 78 runs away from completing 2000 runs in IPL. The batter is also 7 fours away from 200 fours in IPL.
- Moeen Ali is 22 runs away from completing 1000 runs in IPL.
- Ruturaj Gaikwad needs 93 runs to reach 1500 runs in IPL
- Ajinkya Rahane needs 8 sixes to reach 100 sixes in T20 cricket.
- Ravindra Jadeja needs 2 runs to reach 3000 runs in T20 cricket.
- Maheesh Theekshana needs 3 wickets to reach 50 wickets in T20 cricket.
- Aiden Markram needs 4 fours to reach 50 fours in IPL.
- Mayank Agarwal needs 56 runs to reach 2500 runs in IPL.
- Mayank Agarwal needs 12 fours to reach 250 fours in IPL.
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar is 2 wickets away from 250 wickets in T20 cricket.
- T Natarajan is 1 wicket away from 50 wickets in T20 cricket.
(Credits: Cricbuzz, Mykhel.com and my dear cricket fanatic friends)
Pitch / Weather Report:
So far, the two games at the MA Chidambaram have been high-scoring and were won by the team batting first. This trend might get repeated in this match as well. Both teams have a solid batting unit and might produce a high-scoring encounter. The average first innings score in the last five T20 games has been over 160 runs. (Credits: https://www.crictracker.com/)
Venue: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
Date & Time: April 21st at 7:30 PM IST and local time
Live Streaming: Star Sports Network and Jio Cinema
Dream 11 Team:
