CHENNAI: There will be no room for error when Chennai Super Kings take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL at the MA Chidambaram stadium here on Monday. With a playoff berth on sight, both CSK and SRH will battle hard.
Hyderabad with 14 points with an Net Run Rate of 0.331 must win both their upcoming league games to secure a spot in the top four.
With 12 points from 12 games, CSK also need to win games to stay in the hunt for a berth in the playoffs. One of the reasons for Hyderabad's success has been the runs they managed to put in the powerplay. With Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma as openers and with Ishan Kishan at one drop, Hyderabad have the power hitters in them to get a good start.
But they faltered at the hands of Gujarat Titans’ potent bowling attack of Mohammed Siraj and Kagiso Rabada.
CSK’s Spencer Johnson – who returned from injury to play his first match of the season on May 15 – believes that it is important to bowl well in the powerplay against Hyderabad, saying that whoever is given the ball in the first few overs are backed to do well.
"Up until the last game, we had the best bowling economy as a group, so whoever has got the ball in hand, we fully back them," Johnson said in the pre-match press conference on Sunday.
"The power play is so important for any team with the ball. I feel like you don't win in the power play but you can definitely lose it, so we obviously want to start well. They (SRH’s Head & Abhishek) are two world-class players. They're one of two in the world in T20 cricket, so we'll do our research on them,” he said.
Johnson, on his assessment of the pitch in Chepauk, said that it could offer more bounce than in Hyderabad. “We have got our tactics that we'll bring out tomorrow. We have a lot of left-armers to swing our way, so we're excited for the challenge," he added.
CSK Spinners Akeal Hosein and Noor Ahmad will also be expected to contain the explosive batters of SRH including the likes of Heinrich Klaasen. "Akeal and Noor share a good rapport with each other. They help out each other on the ground. They're well-prepared in terms of being tactically aware of what to plan against different oppositions," spin-bowling coach S Sriram had said.
Varun Aaron, the bowling coach of Hyderabad revealed that one of their aims is reduce CSK to an attainable score, if they bat first.
"In the course of 14 league games, there does come one of these games for every team and if you overthink it, that really leads to the detriment of your team. So it's one of those games, very different opposition, very different surface. We keep doing the same thing, backing our strengths and approach this game like no other game," Aaron explained on Sunday.
"Anything under 200 is very gettable. We're playing pitch number 5, the winning score on this wicket is maybe around 210, so anything under 200 should be good here," he added. In terms of batting, Aaron believes that Klaasen has been a vital cog in the wheel "Klaas is one of the best T20 battlers over the last 7-8 years and there was no reason that his performance would dip. In fact, I think he's gotten even better because playing for us, especially coming on to bat after you have a top three who are really explosive, to maintain the same tempo or even to shift a gear down and then go up towards the end is not easy at all from the outside. From the outside it looks really, really easy but it's not easy at all. So he makes it look unbelievably easy and I think that's all we're looking for from him," complimented Varun.
Meanwhile, Former captain MS Dhoni had a long stint at the nets in the main ground next to the center wicket.