IPL 6: Match 30 - CSK vs RR - Chennai Super Kings Preview

Adam Gilchrist pointed out during the toss in the match against PWI that there are two teams that have built a home advantage for themselves – CSK and RR. Tonight, the teams meet each other at CSK’s home turf – the MA Chidambaram Stadium. The team that wins the clash will also climb to the top of the points table – a good position at any point during the tournament, more so as teams will soon enter the second half of the league.

The opening combination has been a bit of a worry for the Super Kings before their previous match. It still continues to linger on as Dhoni went and pulled off another surprise by sending in Ashwin to open with Michael Hussey, thereby depriving their regular opening pair a chance to open. Even by Dhoni’s standards, slotting Ashwin as a regular opener is a high-risk move and Vijay can expect a return to the top of the order. He will have to improve his form as CSK wouldn’t like the trend of opening failures to continue.

The match against KKR showed us just why CSK is such a hard team to beat even if the opposition think that they hold an upper hand. Their middle-order is filled with batsmen who can turn the match around in a matter of a few deliveries – Dhoni, Bravo, Jadeja and Albie Morkel are all potential match-winners with their batting alone. They are capable of milking runs off an RR bowling line-up which relies on good lengths and changes of pace to trouble the batsmen.

The CSK bowling will face one of their tougher tests against the batsmen of the class of Watson, Rahane, Dravid and Hodge. All of them are good players of pace and spin bowling alike. It will be a good contest between one of the more settled bowling and batting units in the competition.

Players to watch out for

MS Dhoni – He would be disappointed that he has been getting out at crucial stages during the last 2 chases. However, given Dhoni’s approach to the game, this wouldn’t change his batting style and one would expect him to go out all guns blazing.

Michael Hussey – Thanks to him, CSK are losing only half their sleep over their opening batting pair’s form. He has shown positive intent against KXIP and KKR and will be looking to build on his performances thus far.

X Factor

Ravindra Jadeja – One of the messages on a micro-blogging site read, “Ravindra Jadeja is actually trolling us with his performances while we thought that we are trolling him!” He is growing in confidence with each match and that has also translated into a couple of match-winning performances for CSK already this year.

Prediction

CSK hold the upper hand in this match with their batting strength. It will not be easy for the RR bowlers to neutralize this threat as CSK bat deep and bat well. The men in yellow should win this contest and how close it gets will be dictated by how well their opening batsmen perform.