Sharjah: After a winning start in the opening game against the Mumbai Indians, Mahendra Singh Dhoni led Chennai Super Kings will look to win two in two as they meet a depleted Rajasthan Royals outfit here on Tuesday.
Falling flat
The Royals have been time and again forced to make changes to their XI during the later half of the tournament due to the unavailability of first choice players, seems like this season they have to do it from the very beginning. With Jos Buttler in quarantine and Ben Stokes still with his family in New Zealand attending to his ailing father the team already looks depleted with their two stars missing.
New Stars?
Yashasvi Jaiswal and Robin Uthappa would be looking to fill up the gap for Buttler, whereas England’s Tom Curran might get a look in, in place of his countryman Stokes. Also the Royals would want to give some game time to the devastating David Miller who has changed his franchise after spending nine seasons with Kings XI. Also after clearing mandatory tests Royals captain Steve Smith would be ready and raring to go.
The Vijay dilemma
For Chennai, Dhoni might just be prompted to drop Murali Vijay who had a disastrous first game from the XI and bring in pacer Shardul Thakur as an extra addition to his bowling unit keeping in mind the shorter boundaries of the ground. However the possibility remains far fetched considering Dhoni’s captaincy mind he might just stick to the same XI that won against Mumbai.
The X- Factor
Two Englishmen have their chance of standing up and delivering the goods for their side in this game. Sam Curran for CSK and Jofra Archer for the Royals. Considering the Sharjah pitch has some natural grass cover, both pacers with get movement upfront and will be quite a handful for opposition batsmen.
Sam Curran will also be battling a sibling rivalry as his brother Tom turns up for the Royals.
Strategy
While Chennai will stick to more or less the same plan like last game, use Lungi Ngidi and Curran at the death, the Royals too would want to save their best for the last- have Archer bowling at the death.
For Chennai there’s no better finisher that the legend himself MS Dhoni. While the same needs to be replicated for the Royals by Miller who enjoys batting in the UAE.
Predicted XI:
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Murali Vijay, 3 Faf du Plessis, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Sam Curran, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Deepak Chahar, 11 Lungi Ngidi
Rajasthan Royals: 1 Robin Uthappa (wk), 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Steven Smith (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 Riyan Parag, 7 Shreyas Gopal, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Jaydev Unadkat, 10 Varun Aaron, 11 Tom Curran
