High-soaring Titans set eyes on resurgent Chennai

All eyes will converge upon an idyllic Sunday evening as an in-form Gujarat Titans hope to continue their marauding hunt with a wobbling Chennai Super Kings in sight. The Titans have been simply unstoppable as they managed to turn around their disappointment against the Sunrisers Hyderabad to a joyful win over the Rajasthan Royals with the latter collapsing under the pump.

Chennai Super Kings, on the contrary, found themselves well-placed against the Royal Challengers Bangalore as they secured their first win of the season after a topsy-turvy encounter. Despite securing a victory by 23 runs, their chasms still remained wide open as the Challengers managed to turn the tide around from 50 for 4 to a staggering 193.

A win for the Titans will entrench them right at the top of the points table with a fair mile between them and the ones closest in contention. However, they cannot afford to allow a defeat creep in as it can be a deafening blow to their aspirations of staying afloat at the top as three other teams are already breathing heavily on their neck.

For the Titans it has been a solid chemistry between their batters and bowlers and Hardik Pandya has done an exemplifying job of spearheading the unit with some shrewd vision and well-plotted strategy. Ravindra Jadeja, on the contrary, has struggled to strike the right chord of balance that has seen them stutter.

Venue Watch:

The MCA Stadium in Pune has been exceptionally kind to the batters and it has gone from strength to strength for the side batting second with the dew factor in kicking in. There will be slight assistance for the spinners as the game progresses. So far 43 T20 matches have been played at this venue and 21 of them have been won by batting first while 22 of them have been won by the teams chasing, making this an equal distribution that would keep both the contingencies in contention.

Squads:

Chennai Super Kings:

Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni, Moeen Ali, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Dwayne Bravo, Ambati Rayudu, Dwaine Pretorius, Mitchell Santner, Subhranshu Senapati, Adam Milne, Mukesh Choudhary, Prashant Solanki, C Hari Nishaanth, N Jagadeesan, Chris Jordan, K Bhagath Varma, Robin Uthappa, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Tushar Deshpande, KM Asif, Shivam Dube, Maheesh Theekshana, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Samarjeet Singh, Devon Conway.

Gujarat Titans:

Hardik Pandya, Rashid Khan, Shubman Gill, Mohammed Shami, Jason Roy, Lockie Ferguson, Abhinav Sadarangani, Rahul Tewatia, Noor Ahmed, Sai Kishore, Vijay Shankar, Jayant Yadav, Dominic Drakes, Darshan Nalkande, Yash Dayal, Alzarri Joseph, Pradeep Sangwan, David Miller, Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade, Varun Aaron, B Sai Sudharshan

Match Details:

Chennai Super Kings vs Gujarat Titans

Venue: Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Pune

Date: 17th April 2022

Time: 7:30 PM IST