Match Preview: April 7, 2018, MI Vs CSK, Mumbai, 8 PM

Tug-of-war between incumbent and former champions marks IPL ’18 opener

Rohit Sharma is all set to lock horns with his former captain and India’s world-cup winning captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni today (Saturday) when he would be walking out for the toss at the historic WankhedeStatium for the opening match of the Indian Premier League (IPL), 2018 which gets underway with a high-octane clash between incumbent champion Mumbai Indians and former champion Chennai Super Kings.

Wankhede is an unforgettable ground for ‘God of Cricket’ Sachin Tendulkar who played his last Test match here a few years back and delivered an emotional speech later.  It was also here where he got to celebrate Team India’s magical ODI World Cup victory in the 2011 final against Sri Lanka, sealed by the inimitable M.S. Dhoni who hit an unforgettable six with more 10 balls to spare.

The night encounter is to commence at 08:00 p.m. after the inaugural star-studded events are over.  CSK, which missed the last two editions of the IPL due to some unwa(rra)nted developments, is back in the thick of action led by Dhoni, the never tiring veteran.  The most popular team in the IPL is waiting to get going and do what comes best to it: to win all its matches and thus the trophy in the 45-day long event.

CSK would surely seek a 'revenge' of their title loss against Mumbai when they last played here.  Mumbai crowd will surely back the home team but stars like Dhoni, Raina, Jadeja and Harbhajan Singh (who once captained MI) are hugely popular stars the world over and the learned Mumbai crowd would back them also, thus displaying true sporting spirit.

CSK is a very strong all-round unit with big-hitters such as Murali Vijay, Shane Watson, Raina, Rayudu, Dhoni, Jadeja and Bravo in their ranks; their bowling is equally sharp with the likes of Harbhajan Singh, Bravo, Mark Wood, Mumbai’s local boy Shardul Thakur, Karan Sharma, Lungi Ngidi besides Jadeja and Watson.  Comparatively, Mumbai appears somewhat ‘weak’ despite the presence of Matthew McClenaghan, JaspreetBumrah, MuztafizurRehman, Rohit Sharma and the two Pandya brothers besides the marauding Kieron Pollard.

All in all, it promises to be a thrilling encounter and would be just the ideal start to the long cricketing season comprising IPL and other domestic matches in the country.  Indian cricketers, surprisingly, haven’t played on the home-turf since their return from South Africa where they lost the Test series 1-2 but won the ODI and T20 series.

There is hardly anything to choose from the two champion teams which have almost shared their past 22 encounters equally: Mumbai has won 12 while CSK has won 10!

Players to watch out for: 

CSK: MS Dhoni, SureshRaina, Bravo
MI: Rohit, JaspreetBhumra, Kieron Pollard