The first week of the second leg of IPL 2021 is near its end, and now we have our Blockbuster Cricketing Sundays back! The first Sunday of the second leg will have Chennai Super Kings going against Kolkata Knight Riders in the first fixture, while the second match will see Royal Challengers taking on Mumbai Indians. So, let’s look at what we have in the bag for the first match of this Super Sunday.
Head-to-head
Chennai has dominated their fixtures against Kolkata Knight Riders, winning 16 of the 26 games, while Kolkata won only nine. Their last encounter in the first leg of this season saw Chennai posting their highest score against Kolkata, i.e., 220, credit to the two men in form. Ruturaj Gaikwad scored 64 runs while the man of the match, Faf du Plessis, produced a 95 runs extravaganza. The game also saw an impeccable effort by Pat Cummins, who gave his all to reach the target for Kolkata. The effort, though in vain, went down as an instant classic of the tournament.
Players to look forward to
Ruturaj Gaikwad
The blue-eyed boy of Chennai Super Kings this season, Ruturaj, will indeed look forward to garnering more attention through this match. He has managed to score 322 runs in this season which include three fifties.
Faf du Plessis
One can fathom how Faf didn’t make it to the Proteas World Cup squad seeing his performance this season for CSK. One of the leading contenders for the orange cap, Faf, has notched 351 runs this season, including four fifties at a strike rate of 140.96.
Rahul Tripathi
The highest scorer for Kolkata last match, Rahul has produced numerous match-winning performances for his team and is doing the same this season. He has amassed 261 runs in this season so far.
Andre Russell
The ‘Big show’ of the Kolkata squad in recent years, Russell will look forward to giving his all in this critical match. He currently has scored 163 runs and has taken ten wickets in 9 games this season.
What can we expect?
The second leg for both the teams has been rewarding, especially Kolkata, who seemed to have donned the avatar of brutality in their last two matches, crushing both their opponents conveniently. Chennai, too, has won both their games of the second leg. Both the teams will be putting their foot forward to make their consecutive wins record to three right now.
CSK vs KKR Predicted XI
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (C & Wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Josh Hazlewood
Kolkata Knight Riders: Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (C), Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik (Wk), Sunil Narine, Prasidh Krishna, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy