CHENNAI: After a statement win against arch-rivals Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday (April 23), Chennai Super Kings return home to face a wounded Gujarat Titans team in the Indian Premier League at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday.
The five-time champions after a sluggish start to the tournament have won three of the last four matches and would look to consolidate.
One man who has put CSK on rails is new wicket-keeper batter Sanju Samson. His century the other day against Mumbai helped Ruturaj Gaikwad and Co register a facile win. Meanwhile, Gujarat Titans would look to get back to winning ways. After a strong start, they lost their last two matches to MI and a five-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Friday.
Despite being level on six points with CSK, GT see themselves seventh due to a lesser net run rate (-0.790). For the hosts its top order has been clicking in turns. With Ayush Mhatre out due to injury Sarfaraz Khan was pushed up the order, but the Mumbai batter failed in the previous game.He is likely to continue in the same spot against Gujarat. However the middle order is a matter of concern for CSK. In the defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad, the middle-order collapsed at a point where CSK required about 130 runs from 90 balls.
The wait for MS Dhoni's return to the playing XI may continue. CSK head coach Stephen Fleming said that he was progressing well and was on the road to recovery and doing everything that's being asked of him.
It's time for the likes of Sarfaraz, Shivam Dube and Dewald Brevis to convert their starts into big scores.
It is also time for Skipper Gaikwad to turn up. CSK's head coach Stephen Fleming defended his captain.
"Ruturaj is a quality player and a young captain that's working himself into the role. And he's doing a good job. I know he's getting a lot of heat from outside, but within (the team) he's got a lot of support and he's very well respected within the side and that will continue," he told reporters on Saturday.
He felt Brevis may get out at times because of his aggressive brand of cricket. (With) Brevis, nothing wrong with him. It's obviously a bit more aggressive game that everyone has made, so you're going to get times where they are going to be starts and then get out," he said.
In their last outing against RCB, GT failed to accelerate in the death overs, a phase that proved decisive. Skipper Shubman Gill admitted that they lost the match there.
I think, from 16 till 19, those three overs, we couldn't get any boundaries and we didn't get as many runs as we would have liked. I think those three overs were very crucial for us," Gill said after the loss on Friday.
In Chennai too some of the boundaries are short like the one in front of the MCC stands. So this could be exploited by the batters.
But CSK coach Fleming insisted that the pitch for Sunday's game was "pretty much in the middle" and insisted that it was still a challenge for bowlers to contain as the dynamics of batting had changed.
"When you know one side is a bit short, In my understanding, the wicket is pretty much in the middle tomorrow (Sunday) and the sides are some of the longer boundaries in the competition. So we're aware that we've got a little bit more distance to work. I think there's one today that's 59 metres, which is hard to defend. So there's a real tactical shift there. We think there's enough of an outfield to work with tactically. But yeah, the power of the batters these days is good," explained Fleming.
Speaking of batting roles and power hitting, Dube is performing a slightly different role of late. Once deployed to hit spinners, he is now given the finisher's role. "When the first impact player role came in, we used him just like that. And he did that really well. And then teams obviously evolved, and India used him differently. So he's done a number of roles over the last couple of years, and he's very comfortable doing both. It's a little bit of weighing up who we're playing, what sort of situation we get in. And there are other players as well. It's not just all about when Dube can bat. There are other players that have good positions that they can come in and perform. So it's just balancing out the team needs with the skill-set that Dube has. He's training beautifully. And I'm confident he's not far away from having a bigger impact with the bat," opined Fleming.
