Chennai Super Kings is going face Mumbai Indians in their second match in Indian Premier League today. The match will take place at the Chennai Super Kings home ground, MA Chidambaram Stadium on 23 April 2008. This is going to be first home match for Chennai Super Kings in the tournament as they played their first match at
So, Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians had different experienced in their opening match in the tournament. Now, the Tamil Nadu cricket fans are excited with today’s match because literally the tournament is going to start in the state today with the match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians. So, Chennai fans are now in a festive mode.
Mumbai fans do not have anything to celebrate ahead of the match as they failed to win the first match. Moreover, they are going to play another match without their regular captain Sachin Tendulkar, who is on his way to recover from groin injury. So, Harbhajan Singh will lead the Mumbai team in the second match as well. He showed enough maturity in his captaincy in the lost match. The changes of bowlers were effective in the crucial moments during the match, though that could not save Mumbai Indians from losing the match.
Now, no doubt, both teams are gearing up to win the match. Chennai Super Kings will look to continue winning, while Mumbai Indians are thinking off gaining their first point in the IPL 2008 Twenty20 tournament. Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians match kicks off at 20:00 local time (14:30 GMT).
In terms of strength, it is very difficult to set either of the sides apart because both Chennai and Mumbai squads include some international stars and talented local players. Both sides have some players who are capable of winning matches by their own. Not only the foreign players, but also the local players can also play crucial part in the match. In fact, if you go through the previous matches in the tournament, you will definitely see how much contribution the local players had for their respective sides and to what extent they could help their teams to win the matches.
For Chennai Super Kings, they have a formidable batting line up with the likes of Matthew Hayden, Stephen Fleming, Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Parthiv Patel, Subramaniam Badrinath and all rounder Jacob Oram. You can see a more than balanced batting line up for Chennai Super Kings. Led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, know as cool captain, Chennai Super Kings may not have any problems with their star studded batting line up. Actually, the local lads like Suresh Raina and Subramaniam Badrinath played really very well in the opener. Dhoni failed to show his momentum in the first match, so it is predictable that the hard hitter would like to come back with his aggressive batting in front of the home crowd today. Michael Hussey’s blistering knock hammered the
Chennai Super Kings can create another problem for the Mumbai Indians bowlers. Chennai Super Kings played five left handed batsmen in the first match, which is very tough for the bowlers to bowl against a number of left handed batsmen.
The Hindu reported:
Super Kings has the batting firepower. Matthew Hayden can dismantle attacks at the top of the order.
The host batting poses a problem of a left-handed variety to the Mumbai Indians. Five of the expected top six — Hayden, Parthiv Patel, Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina and Jacob Oram — are all southpaws.
How would the Mumbai Indians counter an array of left-handers? The incoming ball is the stock delivery in the Twenty20 variety but such a ball could well provide width to a left-hander. The away-going delivery to the right-hander would be on the southpaw’s pads.
If batting gives a confidence to the Chennai Super Kings players and fans, then bowling is where they lack momentum. Specially, their pace attack does not pose any threat for the opposition batting line up. Though Chennai Super Kings won the first match, they bowling performance was not satisfactory at all. In fact, Chennai Super Kings bowlers conceded over a little over 10 runs per over against Kings XI Punjab in the first match.
The main strength of their bowling is great spinner Muttiah Muralitharan. Even in the presence of Muralitharan, I do not think they have a balanced spin attack, only because there is no other effective spinner in the squad. Thus, the pressure goes on Muralitharan, which also affects his game. However, reports have it that Chennai may include all rounder R. Ashwin, who is an off spinner. As for pace attack, I think, they lack experience. Spearheaded by New Zealand pacer Jacob Oram, their pace attack includes Lakshmipathy Balaji and Joginder Sharma along with less experienced Palani Amarnath and Manpreet Gony. Actually, the absence of Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel has contributed a lot to lessen their bowling strength. Chennai captain Dhoni bought Oram to open the bowling for Chennai Super Kings in the first match but Jacob Oram hardly gets new ball in international cricket for
Expressindia reported:
With some solid batting, the Chennai team had posted a 12-run an over average in their first match against Kings XI Punjab on Saturday, which they won by 33 runs.
But their not so effective bowling in the absence of new ball specialists Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel, who are yet to join the team, makes them a tad vulnerable.
Mumbai Indians failed to shine in both batting and bowling. They could amass only 165, which is not a big score considering the high scoring other Twetny20 matches. Even their bowlers were not as much impressive as they should have been. For batting line up, they have a number of star batsmen including Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuria, Robin Uthappa. The batsmen like Luke Ronchi, Dominic Thornely are less known in the cricket world, but they are proven performer. There are some potential local batsmen including
Pinal Shah, Abhishek Nayar in the squad. So, even in the absence of Sachin Tendulkar, I do not think they should have any problem to throw a challenging total or chase a big total. However, in the absence of Ashwell Prince and Loots Bosman, their batting line up lacks some quality options.
For bowling, I think, if there is anything week among the three departments of cricket, bowling line up of Mumbai Indians seems to have some problems. Even though they have a spinner of Harbhajan Singh’s caliber, the squad lacks a quality spinner who could support Harbhajan well. Santah Jayasuria’s spin was not enough to support Harbhajan Singh well in the match. For pace attack, they do not have any real threat who could dominate opposition batsmen. Specially, Lasith Malinga would b playing that role if he were not ruled out of the tournament with injury. Shaun Pollock leads their pace attack with the support from Ashish Nehra, who showed a disastrous performance in the match. Dhawal Kulkarni looked good, but lacked the dominating skill. Here, I am quoting some lines from Sunil Gavaskar’s comment on Mumbai Indians bowling line up:
Harbhajan showed that he doesn't need a crumbling pitch to get wickets by deceiving a batsman of the caliber of Rahul Dravid with flight, but the Mumbai Indians found that they did not have a good supporting cast for their skipper. Shaun Pollock did his bit with both bat and ball, but unless the Mumbai Indians get their combination right, they will find it an uphill task till Sachin Tendulkar gets fit. The little champion of course is capable of winning games off his own bat and his presence on the field will be inspirational for the team. He is also a canny bowler whose "mixed bhajiyas" are hard to read for most batsmen, and that's why it's important for the Mumbai Indians to have him in action sooner than later.
I think, Chennai Super Kings have better chance in the match, considering their strength and the available players for today’s match. However, as I told earlier that both sides have some winning players who could carry out success by their own, I think, the match would be a close one and both sides have chances to win the match.
For those who will not be able to stick to the television to watch the match live, can get the online live score and updates of the match from different online live score and updates websites. Here, I am some links of live score websites from where you can get the online live score and updates of the match:
Please avoid grammatical errors.
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