This was to be the contest of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020, at par with the famed India-Pakistan contests of ICC World Cups. The broadcaster, too, has been giving it top billing—MS Dhoni vs Virat Kohli, it can’t get bigger than this. That is also the reason that the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is the second clash of the double-header on October 10.
But the fact—despite the conspiracy theories floating around about “scripted drama”—remains that Saturday’s “Prime Time” game being played in Dubai is not anywhere close to the mouth-watering prospect of Delhi Capitals vs Mumbai Indians, a battle of equals.
Dhoni vs Kohli narrative is too simple
There are some similarities between both the teams as far as this season goes. Their standings on the points table hardly match the start-studded lineups. Despite two of the biggest names in the Indian as well as international cricket, the teams are not even among the top four as the tournament reaches the mid-point. Yes, Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore have got two more points than Dhoni’s boys, or “Dad Army” if you will, but their middle-order muddle is the same.
“We got a decent start, a couple of disappointing performances but all in all we are not far off from our best and I think we know what is required to get the momentum going. I have been feeling alright in the last five matches, I did not have a good game in the last match of ours, I will be focusing on getting the swing of things,” said RCB’s iconic middle-order batsman AB de Villiers in a video posted on RCB’s handle.
Middle-order muddle
For both Kohli and Dhoni, an underperforming middle order is the biggest concern and their indifferent form hasn’t helped.
Saturday’s clash offers the two captains a chance to get into the zone. Dhoni has scored nearly 800 runs against RCB while Kohli has accumulated 750 runs against CSK.
Dhoni has an impressive strike rate of more than 170 against RCB. He makes their trump card Yuzvendra Chahal look ordinary, scoring at will against him with an average of 75 and a strike rate of 144 even as his team has struggled against the leg-spinner.
“We have got so much batting resources. We could have gone a whole lot of different ways. That is one of the things we will look at, could we have done it a little bit better... but it is all in hindsight,” CSK head coach Stephen Fleming has said. A rejig in the batting order is possible, especially after Kedar Jadhav’s painful struggle in the last game that CSK lost.
Battle of southern India
Karnataka versus Tamil Nadu has always been a fierce contest and more so in Ranji Trophy, the biggest prize in domestic cricket. The rivalry extends to IPL but CSK has a distinct edge over RCB, more so after Kohli took over as the captain in 2013. Kohli’s boys have managed to get better of Dhoni’s men only on three occasions out of their 11 meetings. In the last eight encounters, Dhoni’s side has been beaten just once and that too by a margin of one run.
“CSK is a very proud franchise, and this is an opportunity for us to test ourselves against them. Regardless of who we are playing, when you are coming against Dhoni and his crew, it will be a really good challenge for us. We know it’s a big game against CSK; we have had three days to prepare for this game. We have a squad, we have plenty of options and if we feel there is a need to rotate guys because of fatigue or through injury, then we have guys who can step in,” RCB head coach Simon Katich said.
Likely XI
Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (captain and wicket-keeper), Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Sam Curran, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar and Karn Sharma.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (captain), Devdutt Padikkal, Aaron Finch, AB de Villiers (wicket-keeper), Moeen Ali, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, Chris Morris, Navdeep Saini, Mohammad Siraj and Yuzvendra Chahal.
(Vimal Kumar is a senior sports journalist who has covered multiple cricket world cups and Rio Olympics in the last two decades. Vimal is also the author of Sachin: Cricketer Of The Century and The Cricket Fanatic’s Essential Guide.)
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