It is a battle of the captains – the former captain of the Indian Test team and the new captain – Mahendra Singh Dhoni versus Virat Kohli – as Chennai Super Kings take on Royal Challengers Bangalore for a place in the final against Mumbai Indians. The match will be played in Dhoni’s home ground, Ranchi, so there will be a lot of support for the CSK side, almost as though they were playing at home.
CSK have an advantage over RCB as historically, they have won most of the head-to-head clashes between the two sides. Twice during the IPL 2015, the CSK and RCB have squared off against each other and both matches were won quite easily by Dhoni’s men. However, on current form, RCB look to be favorites as they are the in-form team of the tournament, apart from Mumbai Indians.
CSK however have a tradition of making it to the finals of the IPL. They have been to the finals on five occasions previously. They have won the IPL on two occasions. They were, however, beaten fair and square by Mumbai Indians and would be down on confidence for this match though.
The biggest handicap CSK face is not having Brendon McCullum in the side. McCullum was their premier batsman who consistently gave them great starts. But, at the time of this writing, he is in England, leading his country, New Zealand in their first Test match. McCullum’s loss is a massive one, and doesn’t seem likely that Mike Hussey, who has been out of international cricket for a while now, is the right replacement.
Others like Faf du Plesis, Suresh Raina, Dwayne Bravo all done well but are prone to giving away their wickets. Dwayne Smith will be now absolutely crucial to Dhoni and he will depend on him to do McCullum’s job – give them great starts. And the rest of the batting line-up – Mike Hussey, Du Plessis, Raina, Dhoni, Bravo and Jadeja have to fire as well if CSK are to have any chance whatsoever.
The bowling seems quite mediocre for CSK, with a lot resting on the aging shoulders of left-arm medium pacer Ashish Nehra. Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has done well, but there hasn’t been much support from others such as Pawan Negi, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohit Sharma or Dwayne Bravo.
RCB on the other hand are in great touch and everything seems to be going well for them. They demolished the Rajasthan Royals by 71 runs in the most one sided clash on Tuesday. RCB probably have the strongest batting line-up in the competition with the big-hitting Chris Gayle, Captain Virat Kohli, the genius AB de Villiers, young Mandeep Singh and Dinesh Karthik.
It was impressive how RCB made 180 in the match against Rajasthan Royals despite Kohli and Gayle failing to perform. De Villiers and Mandeep scored breezy 50s and came to RCB’s rescue.
The bowling has been phenomenal for RCB led brilliantly by Mitchell Starc, perhaps the premier fast bowler in the world, supported well by the young guns, Sreenath Aravind, Harshal Patel and David Wiese. Yuzvendra Chahal the young leg spinner has been excellent, picking up 21 wickets for them.
So, who will make it to the final against Mumbai Indians? Our bet is on the RCB. What do you think?
Watch RCB take on CSK at 8 PM on Friday in the 2nd Qualifier of IPL 2015 at Ranchi live on Sony Six!
