May 1 (Punjab Khabarnama) : After chasing down the highest successful total in the history of the tournament, Punjab Kings will be eyeing another stellar win against the five-time former champions Chennai Super Kings at the M.A Chidambaram Stadium on Wednesday.
PBKS, in their last match, went all guns blazing against the Kolkata Knight Riders to chase down 261 with 8 balls to spare. The chase was anchored by Jonny Bairstow, who scored an emphatic ton to take his team to victory. However, the team will be counting on the sting of the bowling unit backed by Kagiso Rabada and Arshdeep Singh.
Defending champions CSK were back on track after dethroning SRH in a dominating fashion. Skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad, who fell just two runs short of a brilliant hundred against Hyderabad will be seeking contributions from his opening unit after a string of low scores from Ajinkya Rahane. The bowling unit will have the likes of Matheesha Pathirana, Shardul Thakur as well as Deepak Chahar in action.
CSK likely XI (if batting first)
Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Samir Rizvi, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wk), Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Matheesha Pathirana
CSK likely XI (if bowling first)
Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wk), Moeen Ali, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Deepak Chahar, Matheesha Pathirana
Impact Players: Mitchell Santner, Sameer Rizvi, Shardul Thakur
PBKS likely XI (if batting first)
Prabhsimran Singh, Jonny Bairstow, Shashank Singh, Rilee Rossouw, Sam Curran (c), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ashutosh Sharma, Harshal Patel, Harpreet Brar, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar
PBKS likely XI (if bowling first)
Jonny Bairstow, Shashank Singh, Rilee Rossouw, Sam Curran (c), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ashutosh Sharma, Harshal Patel, Harpreet Brar, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar, Arshdeep Singh
Impact Players: Prince Chowdhary, Rishi Dhawan, Arshdeep Singh, Prabhsimran Singh
Head-to-head
Both teams have played each other on 28 occasions where the defending champions are ahead by a narrow margin of 15 wins over Punjab Kings. However, the latter have won their last 3 encounters against CSK.
Pitch Report
The MA Chidambaram Stadium is considered a tricky surface making batting a tall order. However, the hosts scored 212 runs in their last match and were able to wrap the SRH innings for a mere 134 runs. Out of the 81 games played at this venue, the teams batting first have won 48 games while the teams batting second have won 33 matches.
Fantasy XI
Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Jonny Bairstow, Shashank Singh, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ashutosh Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Kagiso Rabada, Matheesha Pathirana, Deepak Chahar