Defending champions Chennai Super Kings will look to sustain their new-found momentum heading into the business end of the Indian Premier League 2024 when they take on an unpredictable Punjab Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Wednesday.

With 10 points from nine matches so far, the Yellow Brigade share similar figures with Lucknow Super Giants, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals, and as such will be desperately looking to break away from the logjam

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However, the Ruturaj Gaikwad-led outfit will be wary of the threat posed by the 8th ranked Punjab Kings, fresh from recording the biggest chase in the history of T20 cricket when they hunted down a mammoth 262 against Kolkata Knight Riders in their previous game.

But considering the unpredictable dew factor at Chepauk, it won’t take long for the momentum to swing either way. The last time CSK turned out at the venue, it resulted in a brilliant 78-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad as there was no dew in Chennai on that night and the CSK bowlers got considerable assistance to demolish SRH’s potent batting unit with their accuracy and variations after their batters put on board a 200-plus total.

Against Punjab Kings, the CSK management would hope for an encore, and all eyes will once again be on in-form skipper Gaikwad getting his side to another mammoth score. Gaikwad has registered scores of 108 and 98 in his last two innings and New Zealand’s Daryl Mitchell also seemed to have returned to form with a 32-ball 52 against Hyderabad.

The middle order will be manned by Shivam Dube, who will be eager to justify his T20 World Cup selection with his batting pyrotechnics. It would be interesting to see if the franchise retains him as an Impact Sub or also allows him to roll his arms with his seam-bowling, something that the Indian team management will be keeping a close eye on ahead of the World Cup in June.

With the bat, Dube so far has made 350 runs, second highest for CSK behind Gaikwad’s 447, and those runs came at a strike-rate of 172.41, second only to MS Dhoni’s 259.45.

CSK will, however, hope for an improved show from the veteran Ajinkya Rahane, whose last four outings as opener produced scores of 5, 36, 1, 9, and those numbers don’t reflect his experience or skill-level. However, it seems that the team management is ready to back him.

On the bowling front, CSK will once again pin their hopes on Tushar Deshpande, whose four-wicket burst broke the backbone of the SRH line-up, and the pair of Matheesha Pathirana and Deepak Chahar. Ravindra Jadeja and Moeen Ali are their spin-bowling options.

The Punjab Kings, on the other hand, will be desperately looking to ride on the momentum received at the Eden Gardens. For that, the batters will once again be expected to fire in unison and the onus is on Jonny Bairstow, who made a hundred against KKR, Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh.

They will also expect their bowling unit, comprising the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Arshdeep Singh, Sam Curran and Harshal Patel to stick as a unit, and compliment each other both at the start and the death overs. Harpreet Brar and Rahul Chahar have also been under-par this season with the spin twins accounting for mere seven wickets between them in this season so far.