Posts Tagged ‘Imran Tahir’
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Despite their indifferent season Chennai Super Kings will start as favourites against Delhi Capitals
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Delhi Capitals (DC) with take on each other at Visakhapatnam tonight for a spot in the IPL finals. They will be meeting Mumbai Indians in the finals on Sunday. Both teams had a good league phase as they both finished on an identical 18 points. Delhi Capitals who began the season with some inconsistent performances finally found their mettle towards the latter half to reach the play-offs after 7 years. By beating Sun Risers Hyderabad in the first eliminator they also completed another first by winning their first knockout IPL game ever.
Delhi Capitals will hope that they can show enough mental fortitude to pull one through against CSK
DC have a strong team. Their batting led by Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant has been firing and their bowling with Ishant Sharma and Kagiso Rabada did very well during the league phase. Even though they are missing Rabada for the play-offs they have a world class replacement in Trent Boult who has had a good couple of games. The addition of Keemo Paul and Sherfane Rutherford also has given them a good balance which they were missing early in the tournament. Prithvi Shaw who seemed checked out after a great start to the season came back some sort of a rhythm in the eliminator 1 with a fifty and Rishabh Pant looked in fine touch with a match winning 49.
For CSK though batting has been their achilles heel throughout the season. Their opening combination barring couple of games has struggled and Shane Watson on whom the team had put lots of faith hasn’t really repaid them with performances. Suresh Raina has once again done well without being spectacular and apart from MS Dhoni the rest of the batting has simply struggled. The bowling has done well especially on slow Chennai wickets but again they haven’t tried anything different even when they have been on the road except for few games here and there. For CSK to be competitive they need to have their batting firing for them to have a chance against a good DC unit.
Head to Head:
Chennai Super Kings have had the wood over Delhi Capitals over the years. They have beaten DC twice already this season and they have an overall record of 13-6 against DC in IPL.
Key Players:
MS Dhoni (CSK) – There isn’t a player who is more important to a franchise than MSD is for Chennai Super Kings. CSK have shown that during this season where they have struggled to win without their captain in the helm. MSD has been their best batter this season and has already scored 405 runs at an average of 135. He will once again be crucial for the men in yellow.
Imran Tahir (CSK) – Tahir has been the constant for CSK this season while they have rotated their other spinners around. Tahir has had a wonderful season so far and is currently second in the list of highest wicket takers behind Kagiso Rabada. With an economy rate of 6.62, he has not only picked up wickets but also has been tough to get away in the middle overs.
Shikhar Dhawan (DC) – Delhi Capitals have never been in this situation before. With a chance now to reach the finals and go all they way, they would his experience to guide them. Dhawan after an indifferent start has had a good season with the bat. He has scored 503 runs so far and will be expected to guide a young team in the all important clash.
Rishabh Pant (DC) – Rishabh Pant will always remain DC’s talisman in any game they play in IPL. He showed in a tight game in the Play-Offs how destructive he can be and how he can change the course of the game in a short span of time. He once again will be crucial in the middle overs against CSK’s spinners as he can easily break open the game with few big hits.
This will be a really mouth watering contest. Probably last season I wouldn’t have given DC any chance against CSK in a play-off game but again this time, the latter haven’t been at their best throughout. DC have the bowling and the firepower in the batting to pull this through but again I just feel CSK just has enough experience to pull this through.
Probable Playing X1’s:
CSK X1 – Shane Watson, Faf Du Plessis, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (C & WK), M Vijay, Ambati Rayudu, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Scott kuggeleijn/Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Imran Tahir
DC X1 – Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer (C), Rishabh Pant (WK), Colin Munro, Axar Patel, Sherfane Rutherford, Keemo Paul, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Trent Boult
Quotes:
“We need to have more balance in the first six – around 40 would be nice. That may get you to a score of 150-160 which can be a match-winning score. We’re just falling behind at different stages but it’s the first six that’s holding us back when we lose wickets. Maybe in case we just throw the shackles off and have a crack in the next game and see if we can just get ourselves into form and confidence,” – Stephen Fleming
“It’s not about who we’re playing, it’s about how our preparations are. And we’re really looking forward to it and hope we do what we’ve done earlier” – Prithvi Shaw
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India and South Africa clash in one of the most important games in group B. The tournament is nearing towards the business end of the group stages and the teams would be mindful that their position in the table is equally important. India with two decent wins against the Irish and the Dutch are currently perched prettily at the top of the rankings and would want to remain there with another win. South Africa on the other hand would want to get their campaign back on track after their disappointing loss against England.
South Africa will be hurt by the injury to Imran Tahir who has been brilliant so far in this world cup. I don’t think SA would want to risk playing him with injury as they would want him to be fit for the knockout stages. The Indian team combination though is still anybody’s guess. If we go by what Dhoni said after India’s win against Netherlands, it seems like Ravichandran Ashwin might finally get a chance against the proteas replacing Piyush Chawla and Ashish Nehra might retain his place in the side at the expense of Munaf Patel. The batting though will remain unchanged barring any injuries.
South Africa would probably play Botha in the place of injured Tahir and the rest of the team should remain the same. The biggest contest of Saturday’s game is going to be between the Indian openers and Dale Steyn. Steyn hasn’t been all that effective in the limited overs format in the past but Smith would want him to be at his best against a strong Indian batting line up. Sachin and Sehwag both have been in tremendous touch and India would be hoping that they give them a good start once again.
The middle order will be under scrutiny this time as in both their previous games, the Indians slipped from comfortable situation to 4 down within no time. They will have to guard against the same against a much stronger South African outfit. Zaheer will again be the important cog in India’s bowling wheel along with Bajji. Bajji would want to get back to his wicket taking ways as along with Ashwin/Chawla, Yuvraj and Pathan he will be important in restricting South Africa’s progress in the middle overs.
This will be the biggest test for the Indian team and a win most certainly put them at the top of the table. Smith knows that losing this game will put enormous pressure on his team and for sure would want to guard against the same. All in all this is going to be a cracker of a game and it will be interesting to see what kind of strategy the teams will adopt for this important group B fixture. Both these teams know each other’s game pretty well as they were at loggerheads just recently in a full series. Both the teams are pretty even and I would say that there are no clear favorites in this match up. One thing is for certain though, the team which bowls better on this Nagpur belter will for sure be the winners.
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