Ruturaj Gaikwad finally called one right at the toss and, perhaps with a small sigh of relief, decided Chennai Super Kings would bowl first against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on a fresh M Chinnaswamy surface. Two lost tosses and two defeats had come before, so no-one was overly surprised when the CSK skipper said he fancied chasing.
“MS is recovering well,” Gaikwad noted, a brief update on Dhoni’s calf problem that had worried plenty of travelling fans. The veteran is not quite ready, but he is moving in the right direction. Dewald Brevis (side strain) remains on the sidelines too.
Jamie Overton returns to the XI after sitting out the Punjab match, pushing the overseas count back up to three. The tall English all-rounder joins Matt Henry and Afghanistan left-arm wrist-spinner Noor Ahmad. Akeal Hosein, the West Indian left-arm spinner-bat, waits again, stuck on the substitutes’ bench marked “Impact”.
Prashant Veer keeps his place despite not bowling a ball last time. CSK’s big-ticket domestic buy Kartik Sharma (₹14.2 crore) is also among the impact options, alongside Australian hitter Matt Short. One of them is almost certain to walk in when the chase begins.
RCB, champions last year and already one win up after seeing off Sunrisers on opening night, have left things exactly as they were. Phil Salt, Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal form the top three; Rajat Patidar captains and keeps Jitesh Sharma, Tim David and Romario Shepherd in support. Wrist-spinner Suyash Sharma, a genuine wicket-taker in the middle overs, could be activated later if the pitch does grip.
Unchanged line-ups might sound dull, but Bengaluru like familiarity at home, and the boundaries remain short enough to keep most bowlers honest. Gaikwad, though, has gambled on the evening dew and his seam trio—Overton, Henry and left-armer Khaleel Ahmed—to tilt things his way.
RCB XI: Salt, Kohli, Padikkal, Patidar (capt), J Sharma (wk), David, Shepherd, K Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Abhinandan Singh, Jacob Duffy.
Impact options: S Sharma, Jacob Bethell, Rasikh Dar, Kanishk Chouhan, Venkatesh Iyer.
CSK XI: Sanju Samson (wk), Gaikwad (capt), Ayush Mhatre, Sarfaraz Khan, Shivam Dube, Veer, Overton, Henry, Noor Ahmad, Anshul Kamboj, Khaleel Ahmed.
Impact options: Short, Hosein, Kartik Sharma, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Gurjapneet Singh.
