After their convincing win over the title holders Mumbai Indians in the Eliminator, MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings will take on the Kings XI Punjab in their second IPL knockout clash.
After their convincing win over the title holders Mumbai Indians in the Eliminator, MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings will take on the Kings XI Punjab in their second IPL knockout clash on Friday at Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium.Riding on the Maxwell’s belligerent knocks in the group stages, Kings XI Punjab dished out a bashing for the two-time IPL champions, Chennai Super Kings but the latter will look to avenge the defeats by securing a final berth against the Kolkata Knight Riders at Bangalore.
However, to achieve the feat of entering the final for the sixth time, Chennai will have to stop Glenn Maxwell. Maxwell, the third highest run-getter with 539 runs this season has been a ‘one man army’ for the Punjab side and will be a crucial wicket for the CSK bowlers.
Kings XI needs to not only regroup quickly but also get over the travel fatigue in order to match the efficiency of the Super Kings, who simply outplayed Mumbai Indians. The CSK is filled with stars with South African Faf du Plessis along with Dwayne Smith, the second highest run-scorer with 559 runs this season and NZ skipper Brendon McCullum. Indian southpaw Suresh Raina, who hit 33-ball 54 not out and stayed till the end, along with David Hussey (40 not out in 29 balls) are also in form.
The Super Kings were efficient in their ruthless win over the Mumbai Indians and they would require another such stellar performance to knock out the Kings XI`s hopes of making their maiden entry into the IPL finals. Super Kings have relied on their Indian bowling trio of purple cap holder Mohit Sharma and two lead spinners (Ashwin and Jadeja) and would hope they can do the trick against the likes of Glenn Maxwell, David Miller, Virender Sehwag, Manan Vohra, Wriddhiman Saha and George Bailey.
Kings XI`s bowling attack is also good. They have been relying mostly on their Indian players in Sandeep Sharma (17 wickets), left arm spinner Akshar Patel (16 wickets), who has been included in the Indian team for the tour of Bangladesh next month and former CSK bowler Laxmipathy Balaji (12 wickets), along with Australian left arm pacer Mitchell Johnson (14 wickets).
The Kings XI bowlers need to provide the team with some early wickets against the Super Kings, otherwise it might be too late too little to capitalise on a win.
Teams:
Kings XI Punjab: Virender Sehwag, Manan Vohra, Wridhiman Saha, Glenn Maxell, David Miller, George Bailey, Akshar Patel, Rishi Dhawan, Mitchell Johnson, Karanveer Singh, L Balaji, Sandeep Sharma, Parvinder Awana, B Hendricks, Shaun Marsh, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mandeep Singh, Shardul Thakur, Shivam Sharma, Anureet Singh, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, M Karthik.
Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (C), Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Faf du Plessis, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, Ashish Nehra, Mohit Sharma, Samuel Badree, Ben Hilfenhaus, Matt Henry, B Aparajith, Mithun Manhas, Ishwar Pandey, Pawan Negi, Vijay Shankar, Ronit More, John Hastings.
