Here we go, it’s IPL 2018! The Wankhade Stadium will be roaring as the Indian Premier League 2018 starts with a bang – Mumbai Indians vs. Chennai Super Kings, two of the greatest teams in IPL history. You can’t get a better start than this!
The last time the two teams met was in the IPL 2015 final. Mumbai Indians won that game, and that was also the last we saw of CSK for a while, because of allegations of corruption and match fixing against their owners.
CSK is back after an extended time out, and are we glad for it! They are the best supported team in the IPL and they will be everyone’s favorite second team. They are a sentimental favorite and of course they are led by the perhaps most popular Indian cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar, M.S. Dhoni.
It doesn’t matter where he plays, once Dhoni walks out to the middle the Indian crowd starts the famous “Dhoni Dhoni” chants. We expect the Mumbai crowd to cheer for Dhoni too, as they always do. Dhoni is beyond any IPL team loyalty, he is a living legend in Indian cricket, and if you are looking for a reason to catch this IPL 2018 action, well, watch it for Dhoni.
Super Kings manager Stephen Fleming was not too sentimental when talking to the media before the big game. He chose to focus on the pitch and the match conditions.
Fleming said, “It’s hard to read it right now. It’s very dry underneath. It’s tough one to read. Usually it plays pretty well. This time of the year the average score is 165. We’re expecting there will be good pace and carry. Dew factor there’s a lot of aspects of it to consider but think it’ll be pretty good.”
Rohit Sharma, the captain of the Mumbai Indians, on the other hand was more effusive. He was happy talking to the media and decided to keep the suspense alive as to his position in the batting line-up.
Rohit said, “I would like to keep that as a surprise. Our middle order is very good and we have got good openers in Evin Lewis and Ishan Kishan. We will see on the 7th where I bat. I would like to keep that as a surprise.”
Harbhajan Singh, who played for Mumbai Indians for donkey’s years, will now wear a CSK shirt. Apart from that, there really aren’t too many changes since the two teams played each other last in 2015.
For CSK, young Sam Billings will play instead of Faf du Plessis who is injured. They have a solid batting line-up with powerful lower order batting.
Mumbai Indians have the Pandya brothers, of course. We all know about Hardik, and his brother Krunal is good enough to play for the Indian team as well. They, along with Jaspreet Bumrah and Rohit Sharma are the heart of this Mumbai Indians side.
We expect a good match, a high scoring game, with Mumbai having a slight edge because of the home support.
The Teams
Mumbai Indians: 1 Evin Lewis, 2 Ishan Kishan (wk), 3 Rohit Sharma (capt), 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Mitchell McClenaghan, 9 Mustafizur Rahman, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Rahul Chahar.
Chennai Super Kings: 1 M Vijay, 2 Sam Billings, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Shane Watson, 5 Kedar Jadhav, 6 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Mark Wood.
Watch Mumbai Indians take on Chennai Super Kings tonight at 8 pm on Star Sports!
