Sunday extravaganza of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will treat spectators with a clash between a dented Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and rampant Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) side at Dubai.
CSK captain MS Dhoni admitted during the post-match conference that 2020 hasn’t been their year. Psychologically, the CSK matador has already conceded exit from the tournament, even though there is a slight mathematical chance to their qualification.
Moreover, based on his post-match talks, it appears as if Dhoni is already planning for the next year’s edition of IPL. It is highly likely that CSK will end up at the bottom of the table.
It would be the first time CSK failed to qualify into the playoffs in all 11 seasons they featured in. With three games to go, Dhoni’s men shall play for pride and try to evade from a bottom-place finish.
RCB, on the other hand, has been the revelation in the tournament. Many cricketing pundits reckon that this year, there’s a different look to the RCB team. The Virat Kohli-led side looks more formidable and better balanced this season.
Game 1 of Super Sunday will see a master-apprentice face-off, with little relevance to the context of the tournament.
Kohli’s men are eyeing the third place at least and will back themselves to reach the top of the table by the end of the round-robin league stage. A top-two finish would ensure a one-match cushion for the Kohli-led side.
RCB’s bowling has been world-class this season, with the likes of Chris Morris, Mohd. Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal and others, hunting in packs. Much of the credit for RCB’s success this season has to go to the bowler.
RCB is sitting pretty at the third place on the points table, with 12 points from 10 games played thus far. Incredibly, they have lost just one out of the five games played thus far.
CSK have the liberty to test out their bench strength and might ponder about playing Imran Tahir and Mitchell Santner in tandem. However, it is their batting which has been disappointing overall in the tournament.
Predicted XI:
CSK: Sam Curran, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, N Jagadeesan, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Imran Tahir
RCB: Aaron Finch, Devdutt Padikkal, Virat Kohli (c), AB de Villiers (wk), Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Washington Sundar, Chris Morris, Shahbaz Ahmed, Isuru Udana, Navdeep Saini, Yuzvendra Chahal
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