CHENNAI: Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni won the toss and opted to bowl first against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match here at MA Chidambaram Stadium on Friday.
The MS Dhoni-led Chennai will go into the match on the back of a win over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) while Aiden Markram’s Sunrisers Hyderabad suffered a defeat to Mumbai Indians (MI) in their last encounter.
Speaking at the time of toss, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni said, “We’ll bowl first. This pitch is 50-50 because it is slightly cloudy.
There might be dew so always better to chase. All packed together on the points table, we need to do well and not look at the table at this moment. Combination-wise, we have been fortunate because we haven’t had all players available. The headaches start later when everyone becomes available. We are playing the same XI, and have the same impact subs as well.”
Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Aiden Markram said, “We’d have also bowled first. We had a good game against KKR batting first, so hopefully we can take a leaf out of that. I think we need to get the whole game good together, one skill is good and the other not as much, so we are working on it. If one of them is having a good night, they have to make it big. Hectic schedules but we are not complaining, the IPL allows us the chance to travel around and meet different fan bases. We’ve got the same 16 from the MI game, but since we are batting first here, there will be a change to the XI.”
Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Ajinkya Rahane, Shivam Dube, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni(w/c), Maheesh Theekshana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Singh and Matheesha Pathirana.
CSK Substitute Players: Ambati Rayudu, Shaikh Rasheed, S Senapati, Dwaine Pretorius and R Hangargekar.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram(c), Heinrich Klaasen(w), Abhishek Sharma, Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande and Umran Malik.
SRH Substitute Players: T Natarajan, Vivrant Sharma, Glenn Phillips and Mayank Dagar. (ANI)