Battle between the first and last teams in points table as CSK takes on MI

With its confidence at an all-time high, the much-fancied Chennai Super Kings (CSK) take on 3-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians (MI) tonight at their new-found ‘home venue’ at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA Stadium, Pune in what is clearly a clash between two teams which occupy the top and the last positions in the points table in the tournament which is to conclude in exactly a month’s time from now.

With five wins in their six matches, CSK leads the points table with 10 points while for MI, it is the opposite: they have lost all but one of their six matches so far.  MI has been relegated to the last spot with Delhi Daredevils overtaking it to attain the 7th spot by convincing beating Kolkata Knight Riders last night thanks to Shreyas Iyer’s match-winning knock.

MI’s much-vaunted batting line-up hasn’t fired coherently as a unit so far.  This was fully in view when it failed to chase down a meager target of 118 set by Sunrisers Hyderabad in their last encounter thus losing the match in a humiliating manner as it was bundled out for 87.  Observers feel that MI captain Rohit Sharma, who opens the batting for India in ODIs and T20s, should go back to opening the innings for MI, something he hasn’t been doing in the past few matches.

Though Suryakumar Yadav and Elvin Lewis have been doing not so badly as openers, Rohit needs to open for MI to give it the advantage right from the first-ball as he can tear apart any bowling attack on his day.  West Indian Kieron Pollard hasn’t fired as much as his team would have wanted; same is the case with Hardik Pandya who too hasn’t done much with the bat and the ball.  MI has 8 more matches to go before the knock-out stage and MI bosses must be hoping that Hardik and Pollard would find their touch soon.

CSK looks like a well-settled unit in batting, bowling and fielding departments.  Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Dhoni and Bravo have been contributing consistently with the bat while Suresh Raina and Sam Billings need to fire in today’s match to give CSK’s top and middle-order a healthy look.  It’s a different issue that CSK has been chasing down stiff totals successfully on successive occasions, but the team’s bosses would surely hope that Raina and Billings get a decent outing tonight against MI.

For today’s match, CSK and MI are likely to retain the same XI ,which played for them in their last matches.  Spectators at MCA, Pune would have an interesting dilemma whether to back the ‘actual’ home-team of MI or to back CSK, which has ‘borrowed’ Pune as its ‘home’ for its remaining home-matches!

Players to watch-out for:

CSK: Rayudu, Dhoni and Bravo
MI: Rohit, Markande, Bumrah