Led by the shrewd Mahendra Singh Dhoni Chennai Super Kings (CSK) has fielded an unchanged squad for all four matches of the DLF-IPL-V competition, while the other eight teams have made at least one change. Playing in his fifth season Albie Morkel (709 runs in 58 matches for CSK) showed what a valuable member in the squad he is when he swung the match around against Royal Challengers Bangalore, thrashing a 7-ball 28 with two fours and three sixes.
South African Francois du Plessis, Suresh Raina, Dwayne Bravo and Dhoni played their part, but without Morkel's monumental effort in the 19th over sent down by Virat Kohli, CSK would not have even come close to the daunting target. Thanks to Morkel's blazing cameo, CSK delivered the most staggering performance in the tournament so far and provided the first hints of bouncing back in a big way. Accustomed to posting 200-plus totals in the world's popular premier T20 league, CSK is in pursuit of a championship hat-trick.
The team punched the heavy-duty shots at the top-half through du Plessis, and in the crunch situation, through Morkel. The others chipped in well to score a memorable win at the MAC Stadium on Thursday.
Fourth team The two-time champion became the fourth team after Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers and Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) to startle an opponent which had posted a 200-plus target.
So far, 18 times have the teams touched the double century score in 343 matches played until Thursday. Five years ago, CSK had fallen short of RR's 211 by 10 runs and on four occasions in the previous editions of the competition it defended 200-plus scores against KXIP, Mumbai Indians and RR and RCB.
Sigh of relief
After Thursday's win against RCB, CSK would have heaved a sigh of relief as it had a faltering start going down to Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils. The second win in four matches took CSK to the fifth position in the points table and it can now look forward to moving up after its match against Pune Warriors India at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium at the Gahunje Village here on Saturday.
CSK has the right to fancy its chances not because it beat all odds and forced a stunning win against RCB, but also for the fact that PWI lost its match to KXIP the same night and would be under pressure to recover. Last year it won the first two matches and lost seven in-a-row.
Looking for an upset
After three consecutive wins against KXIP (two in the last season), PWI failed to find answers to the probing spell by Dmitri Mascarenhas and Shaun Marsh's clever batting and lost by seven wickets. Skipper Sourav Ganguly has so far fielded 16 players, including Sri Lankan Angelo Mathews who missed the last season because of injury. It will be the second home match for PWI and it would be actually looking for an upset win. Last year CSK won the home match as well as the away match.
