CSK bowl, de Villiers returns, Willey to make IPL debut

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Chennai Super Kings chose to bowl v Royal Challengers Bangalore

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Who's the more difficult batsman to bowl to? Who's better in chases? Sanjay Manjrekar and Shaun Tait discuss all that and more

One team needed extra bowling resources, the other its talisman, and both shortcomings were addressed to give a marquee clash additional sheen. AB de Villiers recovered from viral fever to regain his spot in the Royal Challengers Bangalore XI while Chennai Super Kings handed out a debut to David Willey, the left-arm fast bowling allrounder from England. With his inclusion, MS Dhoni has seven specialist bowling options.

Both captains said they wanted to chase even though the pitch started out dry and is likely to get drier as the sun beats down. Some green grass was left on it to perhaps slow down the deterioration. In any case, that suggests they are more than confident the batsmen in their line-ups can cope in case conditions become difficult, but not the bowlers. And there are stats to back that kind of thinking. CSK and RCB have given away the most runs in the death overs this season.

Willey's addition could help in that regard. He is a specialist T20 player for England, having recently opted out of a first-class contract with Yorkshire, and is noted for his ability to swing the new ball. He also has incredible hitting ability and has a highest score of 118. The IPL audience may want to get used to him. Faf du Plessis was forced to the bench.

By contrast, a player that's been around for a while - Parthiv Patel - will also be in action, playing his first game for RCB this season with Quinton de Kock having left for home to attend a wedding.

Batsman Dhruv Shorey found a place in the CSK XI as well at the expense of legspinner Karn Sharma

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Ambati Rayudu, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 5 Dhruv Shorey, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 David Willey, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Shardul Thakur

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), 2 Brendon McCullum 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Mandeep Singh, 6 Colin de Grandhomme, 7 M Ashwin, 8 Tim Southee, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Mohammed Siraj

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Iyer's Daredevils take aim at wounded CSK

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Big Picture

On Friday, Delhi Daredevils did not look like the side that had just one win in six games. They did not look like they have had troubles with their batting line-up this season. They looked like they were a team that was strong not just on paper. It seemed like they were announcing their late but not-too-late arrival.

Shreyas Iyer, Daredevils' new captain was their pillar in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders. He took his bottom-placed side to the highest total of this season as he made the highest score by a captain on debut. He effortlessly took on the pacers and the wristspinners as his ex-captain Gautam Gambhir cheered him on from the dugout. Even his move to drop Gambhir and give Colin Munro and Prithvi Shaw a go as the new opening pair worked wonders.

Chennai Super Kings: lost to Mumbai Indians by eight wickets, beat Royal Challengers by five wickets, beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by four runs

Daredevils: beatKnight Riders by 55 runs, lost to Kings XI by 4 runs, lost to Royal Challengers by six wickets

Daredevils will be flying to Pune to meet Chennai Super Kings, who were most recently handed an eight-wicket thrashing by a refreshed Mumbai Indians.

While Dhoni offered the usual "we were 10-15 short" quote after the loss, their bigger issue was the bowling. They have conceded at an economy of 9.38 after the Powerplay, the worst this season after Royal Challengers Bangalore. They also have the second worst economy rate in the death overs.

Shreyas Iyer has 244 runs from seven innings so far in IPL 2018, at a phenomenal strike rate of 162.7 ESPNcricinfo Ltd

So far this season, their batting has bailed them out whenever their bowlers had let them down. Their loss against Mumbai might not have disturbed their place in the table, but they have a lot of contemplating to do on their bowling inefficiencies in just a day's time.

In the news

Deepak Chahar is out of action for at least two weeks following a hamstring injury. Lungi Ngidi, who had flown back to South Africa following the death of his father, has rejoined the squad.

Strategy punt

In the previous game, Mumbai rightly introduced Krunal Pandya in the fifth over to take advantage of Shane Watson's struggle against slow left-arm spinners. In the IPL since 2015, Watson has been dismissed 12 times by slow left-armers and averages just 9.3 against them.

Super Kings could rope in David Willey in place of the out-of-form Sam Billings. Billings has scored just 24 runs in his last four innings and has also shown signs of struggle against spinners, giving away his wicket three times to them. Willey scores at a strike rate of 170.6 in the middle overs and 157.5 in the death overs in T20s since 2015. They could also use his left-arm inswingers to add a new dimension to their pace attack. He has taken 43 wickets at 24.3 in Powerplays while maintaining an economy of 7.4 in the same time period.

Deepak Chahar and co. have struck in the Powerplay, but Super Kings have often lost the plot after that ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Stats that matter

• Ravindra Jadeja has had a poor run this season, continuing his trend of declining influence on results in recent IPLs. He has bowled just 10 overs in seven games this season and has picked just one wicket as compared to the 2015 season where he picked 11 wickets in 15 innings. However, it is interesting to note that in CSK's two losses this season, Dhoni had not bowled Jadeja.

• Shreyas Iyer will be looking to score his fourth consecutive 50-plus score. Only Virat Kohli (4) and Virender Sehwag (5) have posted more than three consecutive half-centuries in the IPL.

• Glenn Maxwell is known to have gone big against CSK in the past. He has 204 runs in four innings and a strike rate of 202 against them.

Fantasy picks

Iyer for his red-hot form. Maxwell would be another pick for his record against CSK. Suresh Raina has been in the thick of the action for CSK this edition, so he would be an automatic pick too.

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Can KKR, CSK iron out their end-over issues?

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Kolkata Knight Riders: beat Royal Challenegers Bangalore by six wickets, lost to Delhi Daredevils by 55 runs, lost to Kings XI Punjab by nine wickets, beat Rajasthan Royals by seven wickets

Chennai Super Kings: beat Delhi Daredevils by 13 runs, lost to Mumbai Indians by eight wickets, beat Royal Challengers by five wickets, beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by four runs

Big Picture

The previous match these two played became the one of most talked about games this season, after Vinay Kumar faltered in the execution of a yorker that became a full toss that Dwayne Bravo blasted it into the stands to win it.

That match itself was high-scoring and some of the questions it prompted have remained the same. How these sides address them will likely determine the winner on Thursday evening.

Halfway into the tournament the Super Kings have proved to be the best batting unit - in terms of run rate across the three phases of innings. They are third in the Powerplay (8.92), but have the best scoring rate in the middle overs (8.54) and at the death (12.64) where MS Dhoni has regained his golden touch as a finisher. However that advantage is virtually erased by the sloppiness of their bowling, which has been inconsistent throughout innings. The absence of a good new-ball bowler is evident in the Powerplay phase, where the Super Kings are fourth most expensive with an economy rate of 8.63. It gets worse as the innings goes on: in the middle overs, they are third-worst, conceding at 8.40; at the death, where Super Kings have leaked runs at 11.40 an over, they are second-worst in the tournament.

Luckily it would seem for Super Kings, Knight Riders have failed to sustain the early momentum gained by their top order comprising Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine and Robin Uthappa. At the death, Knight Riders lose a wicket every 10 balls and score a boundary every five deliveries. Their run rate of 9.91 in this phase is decent, but nothing that truly hurts the opposition.

Clearly then this could be a battle that is won or lost at the death.

In the news

Nitish Rana has back spasms and will undergo a fitness assessment on the morning of the game. In case he is unfit, Knight Riders could choose between Ishank Jaggi and Rinku Singh.

In T20s, Andre Russell has faced 102 balls from Dwayne Bravo and gone at a strike rate of 211.8 ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Previous meeting

It is the match that will be remembered as the one that pushed fans to troll India seamer Vinay Kumar, following the penultimate-ball six by Dwayne Bravo that helped Super Kings chase down a target of 203. That game also happened to be the last match played in Chennai, after which Super Kings' home base was switched to Pune.

Likely XIs

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Chris Lynn, 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Dinesh Karthik (capt & wk), 5 Nitesh Rana/Ishank Jaggi, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Shubman Gill, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Shivan Mavi, 11 Tom Curran/Mitchell Johnson

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Karn Sharma, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Lungi Ngidi

Strategy punt

Best chance for Sunil Narine to regain his impact with the ball. Narine picked up seven wickets in the first four matches, but then could manage just the one wicket in the next four games during which he conceded at a rate of 10.3 with an average of 144. However his numbers against the specialist batsmen in Super Kings are healthy and home conditions are likely to favour Narine.

Stats that matter

• Andre Russell can overpower all kinds of bowling. Of particular note in that list is Russell's Caribbean team-mate Dwayne Bravo. Russell has 216 runs off 102 balls he has faced from Bravo, a strike rate of 211.8 in 17 innings

• Sunil Narine has had the better of Shane Watson, Super Kings' gun batsman. In 13 T20 innings he has bowled against the Australian, Narine has got Watson six times

• Robin Uthappa needs 23 runs to register 4000 runs in the IPL. Uthappa also needs nine runs to register 1000 runs at Eden Gardens in the IPL

• Piyush Chawla needs two wickets to register 50 wickets for KKR in the IPL. He will become the first player in IPL history to pick up 50+ wickets for multiple teams. Chawla previously took 84 wickets for Kings XI Punjab

• This IPL, Chris Lynn has been defensive against left-arm spinners: in four innings so far, out of 27 deliveries he has faced against them, he has got 25 runs at a strike rate of 92.6 with a dot ball percentage of 44.4, and has been out twice

Fantasy pick

The Eden Gardens pitch has helped quick bowlers more than spinners, which gives Andre Russell two bites at the cherry; he can be great value if he gets to bat too, not least because he has big numbers against Super Kings at the death.

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