ABOUT THE MATCH:

Match 49 of the Indian Premier League ( IPL) 2020 has Chennai Super Kings playing in the top four hopeful Kolkata Knight Riders at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Thursday. The match would be telecasted live from 7:30pm onwards.

MATCH PREVIEW:

CHENNAI SUPER KINGS:

1. The Chennai Super Kings are placed at the bottom of the table. From a total of ten matches played, the Super Kings have won three and lost seven. While their net run-rate is not that bad, it isn’t going to matter unless they win all their remaining matches.

2. The batting of CSK relied heavily on Faf du Plessis and CSK failed to put good numbers on the board, even though Faf was not disappointed. The primary explanation for that was the lacklustre finishes and sluggish starts. Sam Curran was promoted to solve the slow start problem, but we expect CSK to be able to do away with this Sunil Narine-esque experiment with two back-to – back failures.

3. However, for them, bowling has done fairly well. MS Dhoni has always had at his disposal a decent number of choices and that has allowed him to rotate the bowlers. Having said that, Imran Tahir is clearly beyond the comprehension of those sitting in the dugouts.

PROBABLE PLAYING XI:

Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (C & WK), Narayan Jagadeesan, Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Imran Tahir, Monu Kumar.

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS:

1.In the last match, Kolkata Knight Riders won against Sunrisers Hyderabad because of the heroics performance of Lockie Ferguson and again in Super over.

2. In their last two matches, they lost to Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore but Ferguson’s 3-15 was the major obstruction to restrict Sunrisers Hyderabad to 163 runs.

3. Eoin Morgan as taking the responsibility of captaincy, will again lead the squad in this match and most probably include Lockie Ferguson in the bowling line up. Last time, the pacer came and performed superbly with the ball.

PROBABLE PLAYING XI:

Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Eoin Morgan (C), Sunil Narine, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Pat Cummins, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy, Prasidh Krishna.

PITCH REPORT:

The pitch in Dubai was a good one as Delhi Capitals (DC) amassed 219 runs losing just two wickets. The track helped the spinners, too, as Rashid Khan picked up three wickets and conceded just seven runs.

Both teams have good bowling attacks and will wish to battle first. The conditions will be warm with a temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius. The humidity is going to be in the 40s.

WEATHER REPORT:

The forecast for Dubai International Cricket Stadium in the coming week predicts that the average daytime maximum temperature will be about 34 ° C, with a weekly high of 35 ° C predicted in the afternoon of Thursday 29th. The average minimum temperature will be 23 ° C, dropping to its lowest in the morning of Thursday 29th at 21 ° C. The next week will stay largely dry. The winds are expected to be mild overall.

PORBABLE TOP PERFORMERS:

CHENNAI SUPER KINGS:

1. Sam Curran

Sam Curran has been a shining light for the Super Kings in the tournament. The southpaw has performed efficiently with both bat and ball. In the last game, the left-arm pacer picked up three wickets and restricted RCB to a below-par score.

Curran has 173 runs at an average and strike-rate of 21.62 and 136.22 respectively. He is also their leading wicket-taker with 13 wickets to his name.

KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS:

1. Sunil Narine

Sunil Narine has had his travails with the ball in hand. However, the West Indies tweaker made his comeback and is currently a part of KKR’s plans. With the bat, the left-hander notched a half-century against the Capitals and he is in a good rhythm. Last time around against CSK, he was introduced into the attack after the 10th over and he helped his team win the game from a stage of hopelessness.

HEAD TO HEAD:

1. Total Played– 24.

2. CSK Won– 14.

3. KKR Won– 9.

4. No Result– 1.

5. Tie– 0.

BROADCAST DETAILS:

1. Tv – Star Sports Network.

2. Live Streaming – Disney+ Hotstar.

3. Match Timings – 29th October 2020 at 07:00 PM local time.

PROBABLE WINNING TEAM:

The prediction is for Kolkata Knight Riders to win the match.