With the play-offs berth already in their bag, the Chennai Super Kings would be aiming to quickly get over the shock loss against the Kolkata Knight Riders as they look to bounce back against the unpredictable Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL match on Thursday.
With the play-offs berth already in their bag, the Chennai Super Kings would be aiming to quickly get over the shock loss against the Kolkata Knight Riders as they look to bounce back against the unpredictable Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL match on Thursday. Chennai are currently second on the IPL table with 16 points with eight wins and four losses in 12 games. Hyderabad, on the other hand, are third from bottom with 10 points after managing just five wins in their 12 games.
It was a rare day off for Dhoni’s CSK when they succumbed to a painstaking loss against KKR in Kolkata on Tuesday. The unexpected defeat was the result of some poor batting and the ‘YelloW Brigade’ would look to ensure that the batting does not crumble again in the forthcoming games. Openers Dwayne Smith and Brendon McCullum, both of whom have well so far in the IPL 7, failed to get going against Kolkata that led to a poor start.
But on a positive note, Suresh Raina pulled off his third fifty of this IPL season and looks to be peaking just at the right time. Faf du Plessis remains a slight concern as he is yet to come up with a suitable knock. Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, on the other hand, has been going about his job on the right path even though he is without a fifty this season. Despite the absence of a big knock, Dhoni is averaging 44.60.
On the bowling front, CSK’s bowling looks weak as they stood exposed after reliable pacer Mohit Sharma failed to clinch a wicket. Mohit has been the bowling star for Chennai this season, having taken 18 wickets at an impressive average of 15.22.
Hyderabad, in contrast, are all but out of contention for the top-four spot even though they mathematically after beating the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Besides being required to win their remaining two matches, Darren Sammy’s Hyderabad need a few other results to go their way for sneaking inside the top four but that looks unlikely.
On a more positive note, the batting clicked on the day against RCB. Relieved of his duties of captaincy, Shikhar Dhawan struck his first fifty of the season while Aussie opener David Warner, continued his sparkling form by striking his fifth fifty of the season. On the bowling front, Hyderabad’s top wicket-taker is pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has so far scalped 20. They also have fiery Dale Steyn up their ranks but the South African speedster is yet to make his mark this season.
The teams:
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Shikhar Dhawan (c), Dale Steyn, David Warner, Darren Sammy, Amit Mishra, Aaron Finch, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Brendan Taylor, M Henriques, Venugopala Rao, Jason Holder, S Aniruddha, Manprit Juneja, K L Rahul, Amit Paunikar, Naman Ojha, Ricky Bhui, Ashish Reddy, Chama Milind, Parvez Rasool, Prashant Parameswaran and Karn Sharma.
Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (c), Dwayne Smith, Suresh Raina, David Hussey, Ravindra Jadeja, Mithun Manhas, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishwar Pandey, Mohit Sharma, Samuel Badree, Faf du Plessis, John Hastings, Matt Henry, Ben Hilfenhaus, Dwayne Bravo, Ashish Nehra, Baba Aparajith, Pawan Negi, Ronit More and Vijay Shankar.
