In the 46th match of the 11th season of Indian Premier League, Chennai Super Kings won the toss and invited Kane Williamson’s SunRisers Hyderabad to bat first at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune, on Sunday.

After winning the toss, MS Dhoni said: “We will bowl first. I think all depends on how well your doing the job on that particular day. Other than that I don’t think it really matters a lot. There have been some venues where people like to chase. If we bat first and put runs on the board there’s no point of always chasing. It’s important to keep winning games and keep adding those points. The last game wasn’t good. We play 14 games in the tournament so we’ll have a few bad ones. The wicket will not change in the course of the game, so it doesn’t matter. One change for us, Chahar comes in for Karn.”

Kane Williamson said: “We were also going to bowl first. The surface dont tend to change in day games as the dew factor doesn’t come into play. It’s important to assess conditions and post a good score. It was nice to chase down the total last game. Shikhar is batting beautiful. It’s important for us to play with freedom. We want to stick to our plans and post a good score. Yusuf’s soar so Hooda comes in for him.”

On Sunday, CSK will be desperate to return to their winning ways against table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Chennai, who sit at the second spot on the points table, are yet to qualify for the play-offs as the yellow brigade suffered a four-wicket loss against Rajasthan Royals in their last encounter on Friday.

Hyderabad, on the other hand, have already sealed a play-off berth and will be eyeing another win to consolidate their position.

On Friday, a combined batting effort by Suresh Raina, skipper M.S. Dhoni and opener Shane Watson helped Chennai post a fighting total of 176 against Rajasthan. However, the bowlers led them down as Chennai failed to defend a good total.

So far, batsmen are the major reason behind Chennai’s success as they have been in top form this season. However, death-over bowling still remains a concern.

Teams:

Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Alex Hales, Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson(c), Manish Pandey, Shakib Al Hasan, Deepak Hooda, Shreevats Goswami(w), Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma

Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, Sam Billings, MS Dhoni(w/c), Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, David Willey, Harbhajan Singh, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur

Sunrisers Hyderabad (From): Alex Hales, Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson(c), Manish Pandey, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Shreevats Goswami(w), Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma, Carlos Brathwaite, Wriddhiman Saha, Ricky Bhui, Deepak Hooda, T Natarajan, Mohammad Nabi, Basil Thampi, K Khaleel Ahmed, Sachin Baby, Chris Jordan, Tanmay Agarwal, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan

Chennai Super Kings (From): Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni(w/c), Sam Billings, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Karn Sharma, David Willey, Harbhajan Singh, Shardul Thakur, Faf du Plessis, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Kanishk Seth, Lungi Ngidi, Dhruv Shorey, Murali Vijay, Kshitiz Sharma, Monu Kumar, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Imran Tahir, N Jagadeesan

-With IANS inputs.