Rohit Sharma, whose team Mumbai Indians will play the season opener of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Saturday against the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), has said that he enjoys playing against the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side.
Mumbai Indians and CSK, the two most successful teams in the history of IPL, will face each other in the first match of the postponed-edition of the cash-rich tournament at the Shekh Zayed Stadium in Dubai.
“Playing against CSK is always fun, we enjoy that battle. But when we play the game, it is just another opposition for us and that is how we want to move forward and not get overawed by the opposition,” Rohit said in a video posted by Mumbai Indians on their official Twitter handle.
All-rounder Hardik Pandya feels it is a clash between the two most loved teams of the tournament.
“It has become a game which people look forward to. MI and CSK are the two franchises that are most loved by the fans and that’s how it (clash) has become special,” said Hardik.
“I don’t now, we all will get our A-game out when we are playing against CSK and I wish we always do that,” he added.
In their last meeting in the 2019 IPL final, Mumbai Indians had won the match by one run to clinch the title for a record fourth time.
The 2020 season of the IPL will be played for 53 days till November 10 across three venues in the UAE — Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Dubai.
The final match will be played on a Tuesday, to make it the first-ever IPL to have its final on a weekday. The matches this season will also start 30 minutes before their original time of 4 PM and 8 PM.
The IPL 2020, which was scheduled to be played from March 29 this year, was earlier postponed to April 15 before it was suspended again due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.