CSK-SRH kickstart play-offs

Mighty Chennai Super Kings will lock horns with table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad to kick-start the play-offs in Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday. The high-octane clash will be a case of Chennai's formidable batting line-up against Hyderabad's impressive bowling unit. The losing team on Tuesday will not necessarily be knocked out; they will get another chance to reach the final, by playing the winner of the eliminator clash between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals.

However, both these teams would not like to go by that road as Tuesday's winners will get extra days of rest ahead of the big final on Sunday.

Both these teams have failed to match the early season form. Chennai, winning five of the first six games, have won four and lost four of the last eight matches. Meanwhile, Sunrisers have lost the last three matches on the trot.

After getting the reputation of having the best bowling unit in the league this season, Hyderabad bowlers failed to click as a unit in those three defeats.

For CSK too bowling has been a major concern throughout the season. However, the bowlers can take a lot of confidence from their last two outings.

In their defeat against Delhi Daredevils, CSK bowlers did a pretty decent job - barring the final over by Dwayne Bravo which went for 26 runs - to restrict the hosts to 162/5. They followed it up, bowling out Kings XI Punjab to 153 on Sunday.

The reason for the turnaround is primarily due to the impressive form of the South African pacer Lungi Ngidi. Against Delhi, he ended with figures of 2/14 in three overs, whereas, in their last encounter against Punjab, he bettered it with a fabulous 4/10. Overall, he has nine wickets from five matches.

Shardul Thakur is their leading wicket-taker with 14 wickets. However, the other pacers Deepak Chahar and Dwayne Bravo have not consistently lived up to their ability. The spin duo of Harbhajan Singh and Ravindra Jadeja also need to do more in the middle overs to stop the run flow.

On the other end, Super Kings arguably have the best batting unit among the eight teams. They have three players - Dhoni (446), Ambati Rayudu (586) and Shane Watson (438) - above the 400-run mark. Suresh Raina, with 391, is not that far behind.

Rayudu's form has been the biggest positive for Chennai. Infact when the last time these two sides met, Rayudu scored a stupendous century and he also made 79 not out in the earlier contest between the teams. He will be someone Hyderabad will be keen to keep an eye on.

The 36-year-old Watson has defied his age to partner Rayudu brilliantly at the top order.

Dhoni also proved his critics wrong by performing splendidly with the bat this campaign.

The skipper would have also been pleased to see Raina taking the team home with an unbeaten 61 against Punjab.

The team has a deep batting line-up, with Bravo, Jadeja, Harbhajan and Deepak equally capable of hitting some lusty blows when they are called upon.

It will be interesting to see who among Sam Billings and Faf du Plessis will be in the squad for the play-off clash. Both have underperformed this season and will be eager to make up for it.

On the other hand, Sunrisers have completely relied on their skipper Kane Williamson to produce the goods with the bat. With 661 runs, he has carried the responsibility of his team brilliantly and he is in the second spot of the overall scoring chart.

He is being supported well by Skikhar Dhawan (437 runs).

But, the rest have been a bit of a letdown. Manish Pandey, Yusuf Pathan and Shreevats Goswami need to do a lot more to help the team have a stable middle order.

However, their bowlers have been impressive to the core.

Pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sidharth Kaul and Sandeep Sharma have all done their job splendidly and will be keen to continue that form. Their overseas spinners Rashid Khan and Shakib Al Hasan have also been equally impressive.