28 April, 2021

Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi

Can CSK maintain its winning streak against wounded SRH? 

Thanks to its emphatic 69-run win over RCB, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) occupies the top slot in the points table.  Though CSK, RCB and DC have won four out of their five matches thus far, CSK is on top thanks to its superior net run rate (NRR), followed by DC and RCB.  Similarly, MI, PBKS and RR have identical 4 points but occupy the 4th, 5th and 6th spots thanks to the difference in their NRRs. 

Bruised SRH looks for redemption

CSK's next match against SRH on Wednesday (28th April) has many contrasting features in it. While CSK is on a roll with four consecutive wins, SRH has only a solitary win in five games; it lost a close match on Sunday to DC after the match got extended to a 'Super Over', with spinners bowling the super-overs for both DC and SRH.  The narrow loss is certain to hurt SRH’s prospects of making the play-off stages, unless it does some dramatic turn-around. 

Missing Manish's services?

SRH’s decision to opt for rookie Virat Singh in place of the experienced Manish Pandey is clearly hurting its chances, something which is quite obvious.  Even in the match against DC, Manish would have surely made the difference with his big-hitting abilities and quick-running. Newbie Suchith fared extra-ordinarily with the bat and the ball, though; Manish’s presence would have certainly fetched SRH a win and wouldn’t have extended the match to the ‘Super-Over’ stage.

Lack of incisive bowling

In the absence of (injured) Bhuvneshwar Kumar, SRH misses a bowler who frequently gives them the initial break-throughs in the power-play.  Also, not utilizing services of Sandeep Sharma and Jason Holder is also hurting SRB badly; Sharma has always been among the wickets while Jason, with his brilliant all-round capabilities, is always a force to reckon with, especially in the shortest format of the game. 

Too much dependency on Warner-Williamson duo

Scoring is majorly done by captain David Warner and Kiwi Kane Williamson as SRH depends on either or both of them to fire to make a mark, irrespective of whether they are chasing or setting targets.  Other top-order players such as have to share the work load in the coming matches; also, butter-fingered players ought to be pulled up so that they don't miss match-turning catches. 

Settled CSK will look to keep going

CSK, on the other hand, has few problems of serious note and would look to keep the winning momentum going against the bruised and battered SRH.  CSK’s go-to man 'Sir' Jadeja made it a literally one-sided contest against RCB and he sure would be expected to call the shots once again on Wednesday! 

Expected XI:

CSK: Ruturaj, du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja, MSD, Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Shadrul Thakur and Deepak Chahar

SRH: Warner, Bairstow, Williamson, Virat/Manish Pandey, Kedar, Abhishek Sharma/ Jason Holder, Vijay Shankar, Rashid Khan, Suchith, Khaleel Ahmed/Sandeep Sharma, Siddharth Kaul