One thing that will be on the mind of every cricket lover today is whether Chennai can spoil Kolkata’s party in CSK vs KKR? For the first time in Chennai’s history in the Indian T20 League, the franchise will not be able to qualify for the playoffs. MS Dhoni’s legacy of always getting his team in the top four is over and it seems like an end of an era for this great Chennai team. Nevertheless, they won’t go down easily and in front of them, they have Kolkata who still have their hopes and dreams of making it to the playoffs intact.
In the previous encounter between these two teams, Kolkata managed to get the better of the two-time champions, Chennai at Abu Dhabi. They have never managed to beat Cheanni twice in one season and have a chance of changing that in this CSK vs KKR match. Overall, the rivalry is dominated by Chennai having managed to win 13 out of the 21 matches played between these two teams over the years.
KEY BATTLE
MS Dhoni vs Eoin Morgan
This is the battle of two World-Cup winning captains. But this year both have been a bit off colour. Can either of them end on a high? Their fans will certainly be hoping for that.
MS Dhoni is just one run short of making 200 runs this season which has been one of his worst seasons in the tournament. His strike rate and average this season are the second-worst amongst all his years in the league. He hasn’t managed to score a fifty so far and moreover has just been able to get past the third run barrier once. Dhoni has always been a force to be reckoned with in the death overs but this season has proved that maybe he isn’t the same ‘Thala’ as we’ve seen over so many years.
Still, we believe in Mahi and think that with all the pressure gone from him he’ll look to play in the fearless style he used to in his prime.
From 12 matches so far this season, Eoin Morgan has scored 335 runs at the average of 37.22 with the SR of 131.37 despite scoring a single fifty. This is his best season in terms of numbers but it seems like he still hasn’t peaked in the competition so far. On slow and turning tracks he has struggled against quality spin big time and that has been his downfall more often than not.
His team desperately needs him to stand up and get them the desired playoff spot.
PLAYERS TO WATCH OUT FOR
Ruturaj Gaikwad
With the auction about to come up ahead of the 2022 season, people have started asking the question, who can Chennai retain from this ageing team? The answer might just be Ruturaj Gaikwad. He is hailed as one of the most promising players coming through the ranks of domestic cricket and he showed his class in the previous match against Bangalore.
Lockie Ferguson
Pacer Lockie Ferguson has been a great addition to Kolkata’s bowling attack this season. Despite entering late in the competition, Lockie has already bowled 21 out of 100 fastest deliveries of the season and that tells us the difficulty batsmen face while batting against him. He is a threat even to the best players in the world and Chennai will have to do well to deny him any wickets in this match.
PREDICTED LINE-UPS
CSK: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (WK) (C), Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Karn Sharma, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Josh Hazlewood
KKR: Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (C), Dinesh Karthik (WK), Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Lockie Ferguson, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Kamlesh Nagarkoti
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