A fortnight ago, Chennai Super Kings’s campaign was on course after it defeated Mumbai Indians convincingly and had four wins out of six. However, defeats in its last two matches have meant the defending champion has been pushed into a corner where it can ill-afford further missteps. It is in this situation Ruturaj Gaikwad’s men take on a destructive Sunrisers Hyderabad at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium on April 27.
Though CSK has the best record at home, it will be the team facing the heat. Despite scoring 210 against Lucknow Super Giants in the previous game, the Super Kings failed to defend the target, as the medium-pacers struggled in dewy conditions.
SRH, just like CSK, lost its previous encounter — against Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Though the famed top-order had a rare off-day, the Men in Orange have enough firepower to pose a serious threat against a misfiring bowling attack of Super Kings.
After the loss to LSG, CSK coach Stephen Fleming said that the pitch at Chepauk had not played to his side’s strength of spin and wished for a surface that gripped and offered turn. So all eyes will be on the pitch and whether the home side can get a strip similar to the one used in the game against Kolkata Knight Riders.
A slow track could hold the key to stopping Sunrisers’ belligerent batting line-up, which has posted three totals over 250.
The game against RCB showed a potential chink in the armour of the SRH batters when three of the four fell to the slower bowlers, and it is something the hosts will want to exploit.
Squads:
Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Mitchell Santner, Tushar Deshpande, Matheesha Pathirana, Simarjeet Singh, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman and Avinash Rao Aravelly.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Aiden Markram, Abdul Samad, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Glenn Phillips, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Upendra Yadav, Jhatavedh Subramanyan, Sanvir Singh, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Akash Maharaj Singh and Mayank Agarwal.
Match starts: 7.30 PM (IST).
