Still licking their wounds after enduring back-to-back losses, defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) will be looking to return to winning ways when they take on a bruised Sunrisers Hyderabad at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Sunday.
The five-time IPL champions’ decent start to IPL 2024 was rocked by a resurgent Lucknow Super Giants twice consecutively in their last couple of games. As a result the CSK now find themselves at the fifth position in the IPL points tally after four wins and as many losses in their eight outings so far.
A power-packed century from LSG’s Marcus Stoinis was enough to helpthe visitors knock down a target of 210 with ease and breach CSK’s Chepauk fortress, and that could serve as an inspiration to the third-ranked Sunrisers Hyderabad to further dent the Yellow Brigade on Sunday.
Having said that, the SRH, who have twice broken the record of highest IPL total this season will also be eager to prove that the failure of their ultra-aggressive batting template against RCB was a minor blip.
However, the defeat to RCB, their third in this IPL, is unlikely to deter the SRH top-order’s confidence and would fancy their chances against an inconsistent CSK. SRH head coach Daniel Vettori had conceded that the idea of going all out with the bat in the second innings might not be the right thing to do.
But it remains to be seen whether the likes of Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Heinrich Klaasen can curb their natural instincts in the scenario of chasing another 200-plus total. While Aiden Markram would hope to raise his strike-rate a bit, there are hardly any changes that the SRH team management would expect from the batting unit.
On the bowling front, senior seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar needs to get his act together, as he has been at the receiving end of the opposition’s fury, the others in the pace unit, including skipper Pat Cummins and left-armers T Natarajan and Jaydev Unadkat have been right on the money. Leg-spinner Mayank Markande has also been impressive.
The same can’t be spoke about CSK’s bowling unit, as they had to battle the unexpectedly huge amount of dew at Chepauk that took their spinners out of the game. While the dew factor could be an unpredictable one, CSK would hope that their pack of pacers in Mustafizur Rahman, Matheesha Pathirana and Deepak Chahar create the problems for the marauding SRH top order, and keep them on their toes.
CSK’s batting has so far revolved around skipper Gaikwad, whose second IPL century, the other day, came in a losing cause, and the in-form Shivam Dube, who once again impressed with yet another fifty.
Ravindra Jadeja too chipped in with the bat, but the inconsistent form of the top-order is a problem. Both Rachin Ravindra and Dary Mitchell’s lack of runs has forced CSK to shuffle their batting order. And in that scenario, CSK will be hoping for the middle order to do the heavy lifting with MS Dhoni always at their disposal for finishing game, at least for this season!