The Sharjah Cricket Stadium is slated to host the return fixture between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI) on Friday, October 23.
Often regarded as the ‘El Clasico’ of the Indian Premier League (IPL), MI holds the upper hand over CSK in the head-to-head tally. In the 30 games played between the two sides, MI has managed 17 wins as opposed to CSK’s record of 13 victories.
Both MI and CSK are the two most successful franchises in the IPL history, with 7 title wins between them. However, in the context of the ongoing tournament, the game holds little significance. CSK’s chance to qualify for the playoffs for the most part looks bleak.
The last time the arch-rivals met was during the tournament opener on September 19, where MS Dhoni’s squad managed to clinch a five-wicket win at Abu Dhabi.
Things have only gone downhill for CSK ever since. The ‘Men in Yellow’, have found victories only few and far between them, thus far with just three wins out of the ten games they’ve featured in.
Therefore, CSK has been languishing at the bottom of the table. Meanwhile, MI is in contention for being the table-toppers by end of the round-robin stage, along with Delhi Capitals (DC). Rohit Sharma’s troops have won six out of the nine games played in the competition.
Dhoni’s scathing comments on the lack of spark within the youngsters in the team created a lot of buzz in the cricketing fraternity.
The Super Kings have won just one out of the last five games in the tournament. The injury to Dwyane Bravo has made CSK’s task a tad stiffer.
It is expected that the CSK will make some extensive changes to their lineup. This implies Fleming and co. might go ahead with Imran Tahir and Mitchell Santner in their XI, along with a number of local talents.
MI, on the other hand, has a settled sqaud and is not expected to make unforced changes. They have won three out of the last five games played.
Predicted XI:
CSK: Sam Curran, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (c & wk) Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Piyush Chawla, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Imran Tahir, KM Asif.
MI: Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Nathan Coulter-Nile, James Pattinson Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah.
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