The 22nd match of the tournament between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The match between them will start at 7:30 P.M. (IST).
Teams Analysis:
Chennai Super Kings (CSK):
After a dominating start of the season the team looked little out of track as they lost 2 matches back to back. They are currently at number 3 position with 4 points in 4 matches. In their last match they were defeated as SRH pulled the show in their favour by 6 wickets.
A strong start by Rachin Ravindra who scored 37 & 46 in the first two matches but in the last two matches he just had 2 & 12. He definitely wants to capitalize in the upcoming matches. He was batting with a superb strike rate of over 200 but it has been dropped to 173.21 due to low scores in the last two. Skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad put his batting impression well till now except against GT where he scored 46 runs. Till now he didn’t get the start that he showed in the last season.
Ajinkya Rahane is currently 2nd in the list in team’s most run scorer in this season with 119 runs. His highest score was 45 runs against DC. His strike rate also drops to 130.77. Shivam Dube has been showing his consistency with the bat and scored 148 runs till now and is the highest among the players of Chennai. Also striking well as the strike rate is 160.87. He is adding valuable runs in the middle and a good striker as he can boost the team’s run rate anytime.
Ravindra Jadeja had shown his good knocks with the bat but he missed that spark in his bowling. He scored 84 runs in 4 matches and got just 1 wicket with an economy of 7.79. MS Dhoni batted just in the last 2 matches and scored unbeaten 37 & 1 runs. He showed the power against SRH when he scored 37 in just 16 balls with a strike rate of 231.25 which includes 4 fours and 3 sixes.
The absence of team’s main pacer Mustafizur Rahman looked definitely hurt as he has gone to his country for the visa. According to the CSK’s CEO, he is expecting that Mustafizur might be back before the KKR clash. If this happens then he will definitely be in the playing 11. He has taken 7 wickets till now. Another main problem arose was Matheesha Pathirana’s injury. He didn’t play the last match due to illness but will make his comeback against Knight Riders. He has taken 4 wickets till now.
Deepak Chahar has taken 4 wickets till now but has an economy of over 9. He conceded easy runs especially in the death overs making batters easy to score runs.
Probable playing 11 for the match:
Ruturaj Gaikwad ©, Rachin Ravindra, Ajinkya Rahane, Shivam Dube, Daryl Mitchell, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wk), Sameer Rizvi, Deepak Chahar, Matheesha Pathirana, Tushar Despande.
(Impact Player: Moeen Ali/Mustafizur Rahman)
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR):
Only the 2nd team after RR who is still undefeated in this season. They bagged three wins in 3 matches with scoring 6 points. They are in the 2nd position. A full domination showed by them in both the departments, especially they are looking more aggressive in their batting unit. This they depicted in their last match as they registered 2nd highest total in the history of IPL and made DC choked in all the departments as a result they won the match by 106 runs.
Sunil Narine who is well known for his bowling but in this season he has accepted another challenge in batting. He is currently the highest run scorer for Kolkata in this season with 134 runs in his credit. He has scored 2 half-centuries till now with a strike rate of 206.15. In the last match against Delhi, he was in lethal form and scored his highest IPL score after getting 85 runs in just 39 balls. Phil Salt also supported him from the other end. He has got 102 runs till now which includes 1 half-century.
Angkrish Raghuvanshi scored a brilliant half-century against Delhi in the last match. He scored 54 runs in just 27 balls and hit 5 fours and 3 sixes. He is also a new finder of Kolkata who likes to bat aggressively. Shreyas Iyer slowly gets back into his hard-hitting again. His highest was against RCB where he got unbeaten 39 runs.
Venkatesh Iyer also showed ruthless batting against RCB where he got 50 runs in just 30 balls. Andre Russell, the hard hitter of the team and a nightmare to the bowlers in the death overs has scored 105 runs till now with a strike rate of 238.64. Also he took 5 wickets till now in the tournament. His best was against SRH where he scored 63 runs in just 25 balls where he hit 3 fours and 7 sixes.
Looking at their bowling line-up, they have some talents who shine there. Harshit Rana has taken 5 wickets till now and was a match winner against SRH after bowling the match saving last over. On the other hand Vaibhav Arora got 3 wickets in the last match by giving away only 27 runs in his 4 overs.
The most expensive IPL player, Mitchell Starc, finally opened his wicket tally after taking 2 wickets in the last match. He was wicketless and was highly expensive in the previous 2 matches.
Probably playing 11 for the Match:
Shreyas Iyer, Sunil Narine, Phil Salt (wk), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora.
(Impact Player: Varun Chakravarthy)
Head to Head (CSK vs KKR):
They played 29 matches against each other. One match ended in a no result.
| CSK | KKR | |
| won | 18 | 10 |
| Highest score | 235 | 202 |
| Lowest score | 114 | 108 |
Pitch Report:
This match will be played at MA Chidambaram stadium, Chennai. This pitch at the start of few matches has a great support to the batters but as more matches were played it showed huge assistance to the bowlers especially spinners got much more favoured. Therefore batting first might be a good option in this match.
Weather Report:
The temperature will be hot and sunny throughout the day. Humidity will be very high approx 66%, which will make batters hard to score runs. During morning it will touch to 34 degree celsius while at evening it drops down to 28 degree celsius.
Best 11 for the Match:
Phil Salt, Shreyas Iyer, Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Moeen Ali, Maheesh Theekshana, Mitchell Starc, Varun Chakravarthy.