Shaky Chennai takes on their biggest rivals Mumbai in the Friday encounter of the Indian T20 League 2020.
Match Timings: Oct 23, 7:30 PM
Team Preview
The biggest Indian T20 League rivalry is back with its second leg game with a different scenario. Chennai had never thought they would be in a struggling position after defeating defending champions in the season opener. After a pure disappointing show against Rajasthan, Chennai slipped to bottom and they are going to miss the playoffs for the first time in the tournament history. The team combination is giving tough time to MS Dhoni. The more reliability on the top-order is putting more pressure on them. The middle-order is not taking responsibility and somehow, their spin is not showing any impact. Dhoni tried Jagadeesan and Gaikwad twice in the season, despite a series of failures from Jadhav. Bravo has been ruled of the tournament but it doesn’t make any sense for Chennai as their journey in 2020 is over. If they lose on Friday, they will be eliminated from the tournament. Jagadeesan is expected to get a recall in place of Kedar Jadhav.
Meanwhile, Mumbai is having yet another fine season but the defeat in double super over against Punjab made their top-two finish in trouble. Bangalore defeated Kolkata in the previous game to take the 2nd spot and now, Mumbai looks to take it back. Their playoffs is secured but the actual race is to finish in top two. Mumbai lost their season opener to Chennai and after this defeat, they lost only twice and both defeats came in the super over. The domination is high this time with a compact combination. De Cock is in supreme form but this time, Rohit needs some runs to get the form back as he scored just 90 runs in last 5 innings. Pollard and Pandya’s finishing is doing wonders for them. The top two finish is important for Mumbai so they might recall James Pattinson after an average performance from Coulter Nile in the previous two games.
Pitch Report
Sharjah’s surface is a pure batting track but it’s slightly changed after back-to-back games. The spinners will be in command and pacers have the advantage in the first half an hour. 180 is a strong total here and batting first would be an ideal call.
Possible XI
Chennai
Faf du Plessis, Sam Curran, Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Jagadeesan, Deepak Chahar, Piyush Chawla, Shardul Thakur, Josh Hazlewood
Mumbai
Rohit Sharma (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Nathan Coulter-Nile/James Pattinson, Rahul Chahar, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah
Key Players
Chennai
Faf du Plessis
This season – M: 10, Runs: 375, Avg: 46.87
Shane Watson
This season – M: 10, Runs: 285, Avg: 31.66
Mumbai
De Cock
This season – M: 10, Runs: 322, Avg: 40.25
Jasprit Bumrah
This season – M: 10, Wickets: 15, Avg: 17.86
