Super Kings have Andre Russell, Knight Riders spinners to worry about in top-of-the-table clash
Looking at numbers, Super Kings' best chance might be to field first and unleash Ravindra Jadeja on the Knight Riders' top order
The Preview by Hemant Brar
08-Apr-2019
Big picture
There's little to separate Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings at this stage of the IPL. They have both played five games, and won four of them. Knight Riders are at No. 1 on the table, though, because of a superior net run-rate. So, when the two sides meet at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Tuesday, it will be a chance for them to assert their superiority and move ahead on the points tally.
Before their last game, Knight Riders had mostly relied on Andre Russell to make the difference with the bat courtesy his mind-boggling hitting, but their openers Chris Lynn and Sunil Narine added 91 in just 8.3 overs against Rajasthan Royals on Sunday to kill the chase and, now, give oppositions another headache.
As for Super Kings, after Mumbai Indians broke their three-match winning streak, they returned to winning ways by defeating Kings XI Punjab by 22 runs on Saturday. But, unlike Knight Riders, most of the Super Kings' wins have been scripted by their spinners on friendly home tracks.
A similar pitch might work against Super Kings on Tuesday, though, with Knight Riders' having the spin troika of Narine, Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla in their ranks. Chennai might need to look elsewhere for this game.
In the news
While Stephen Fleming said that Harbhajan Singh and Mitchell Santner would get their chances based on the number of right-handers and left-handers in the opposition line-ups, the veteran Indian offspinner might have done enough already to be a shoo-in now.
Previous meeting
The last time these two sides met, back in May 2018, MS Dhoni's unbeaten 43 off 23 balls powered Super Kings to 177, but Shubman Gill (57 in 36) and Dinesh Karthik (45 in 18) added 83 off 36 balls in an unbroken fifth-wicket stand to take Knight Riders home with 14 balls to spare.
Likely XIs
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Faf du Plessis, 2 Shane Watson, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 Kedar Jadhav, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Scott Kuggeleijn, 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Harbhajan Singh, 11 Imran Tahir
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Sunil Narine, 2 Chris Lynn, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Nitish Rana, 5 Shubman Gill, 6 Dinesh Karthik (capt & wk), 7 Andre Russell, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Harry Gurney, 11 Prasidh Krishna
Strategy punt
One strategy could be using pacers from around the wicket, and bowling yorkers and bouncers. In the IPL since 2015, Russell has scored just nine off 17 such deliveries while getting out twice. Scott Kuggeleijn could be the best bet for Super Kings to execute this plan.
During the same period, Russell has scored 101 off 79 against legspinners, at a strike rate of 128 - his worst against any one type of bowling. Moreover, he has scored just 13 off 19 against Imran Tahir in all T20s, with the legspinner dismissing him thrice in six innings.
Their worst record, by far, is when they have lost the toss and been asked to bat, winning just eight of those 21 games with a win percentage of 38. In case Super Kings win the toss, putting Knight Riders in might be the best bet.
Stats that matter
Hemant Brar is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo