Chennai Super Kings will take on Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday and the focus will be on the former’s batting struggles. CSK, in their previous game, failed to chase down the modest target of 168, despite having 5 wickets in hand. The pressure is building on CSK captain MS Dhoni to sort out the batting order, especially with the middle-order struggling.
Dhoni promoted himself up the batting order but struggled to get going, and the decision to promote Kedar Jadhav over Ravindra Jadeja and Dwayne Bravo also did not bore fruits for CSK in the previous game against KKR. (IPL 2020 Full Coverage)
It will be interesting to see if Dhoni still sticks with Jadhav in the team despite the criticism against Royal Challengers Bangalore. Ruturaj Gaikwad or N Jagadeesan are the two players CSK can bring in place of Jadhav.
The decision to replace Piyush Chawla with Karn Sharma has made CSK bowling unit more lethal, and Dhoni’s pace bowling line-up of Shardul Thakur, Sam Curran, Deepak Chahar and Dwayne Bravo have also started finding form.
CSK’s bowling unit will be the key for the side against Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday. RCB have got an in-form batting line-up comprising of Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, who are in top-notch form.
Aaron Finch is still to showcase his best, but he can turn on in the game at any moment and RCB will likely stick by him. Chris Morris’ return will provide RCB much more balance, with Yuzvendra Chahal and Washington Sundar on the spin duties, and Morris, Isuru Udana and Mohammed Siraj being the pacers ijn the team. Udana has been a revelation in the death overs for RCB, but Morris has to take over the role as well. The Proteas allrounder will also be expected to provide the goods with the bat.
How CSK’s batting does against an up-and-down RCB bowling attack and how its batters fare against the Super Kings bowlers could decide the fate of the game.
Teams (from): Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (captain, WK), M Vijay, Ambati Rayudu, Faf du Plessis, Shane Watson, Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Lungi Ngidi, Deepak Chahar, Piyush Chawla, Imran Tahir, Mitchell Santner, Josh Hazlewood, Shardul Thakur, Sam Curran, N Jagadeesan, KM Asif, Monu Kumar, R Sai Kishore, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Karn Sharma
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Aaron Finch, Josh Philippe, Chris Morris, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Shahbaz Ahmed, Devdutt Padikkal, Yuzvendra Chahal, Navdeep Saini, Dale Steyn, Pawan Negi, Isuru Udana, Shivam Dube, Umesh Yadav, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Washington Sundar, Pavan Deshpande, Adam Zampa
(With PTI inputs)
Source: IPLT20.com