India’s most successful cricket captains Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli are to face each other as they walk out for the toss at the historic Chinnaswamy cricket stadium in Bangalore tonight. Numerically, Dhoni has more wins under his hat as Test captain while Kohli is ahead percentage-wise.

Kohli, who grew under the tutelage of Dhoni and ‘God of cricket’ Sachin Tendulkar, has a few worries as his much-fancied RCB is lying in the second-half of the points table; rather, it is languishing in the 6 th spot with only Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils (both have lost five out of their six encounters so far) behind it, occupying the last two spots. 

RCB badly needs a win today to put themselves back in the reckoning as a challenger to win the coveted IPL trophy. Punjab’s win over Delhi on Monday night has put them on top of the tally while SRH’s surprise win over Mumbai Indians in yesterday’s low-scoring match has gained them the third spot in the points table. With a better NRR (net run-rate) already, CSK is bound to take the top spot if it wins tonight.

The two teams would be crossing swords for the first time since 2015 with CSK (which has won the title twice and made the final eight times in the decade-long tournament) leading the head-to-head clash by a huge margin: 12-7. RCB hasn’t beaten CSK in its last four outings against one of the most-fancied and most popular teams in the IPL tournament. In Bangalore too, there is hardly anything to encourage the RCB as head-to-head ties at this venue against the two teams have been even - 3-3 -so far.

Despite being dubbed as a team of ‘30-plus’ guys, CSK has been on a roller-coaster ride, winning four out of their five matches so far after narrowly losing to Kings XI Punjab. Unlike RCB which relies mostly on the world’s two most talented batsmen – Virat Kohli and AB de Villers, CSK has an array of match-winners with the bat. The list seems endless: Shane Watson, Murali Vijay, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, M.S. Dhoni, Sam Billings, Dwayne Bravo; it also has good ‘death’ bowlers in Bravo, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, etc.

RCB has the likes of Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj but they would have to do very well to contain a rampaging CSK batting unit. On paper, CSK appears to have a clear advantage if they could contain the duo of Kohli and de Villiers. However, nothing can be said with certainty when it comes to a game of cricket!

Men to look for:
CSK: Shane Watson, Rayudu, Raina & Dhoni
RCB: Kohli, de Villiers, Sundar & Chahal

Images Courtesy: IPLT20