The Chennai Super Kings will be playing their seventh final in the nine seasons they have taken part in the IPL when they take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday evening. Post the auction, given the number of senior players on the CSK roster, critics were worried about whether they had taken the right decision in their comeback season.
A detailed look at the way the batsmen and the bowlers have performed for the MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings reveals that the side have depended heavily on individual brilliance through the tournament than the combined team effort to take them over the line in a lot of the pressure matches.
In the current season, the Chennai side who moved base to Pune after playing just one game on their home ground has seen four of their batsmen score over 400 runs so far in the tournament, with opening batsman Ambati Rayudu leading the charts with 586 runs which includes a century and three fifties. Apart from him, IPL's Mr Consistent Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni and Australian all-rounder Shane Watson have been the ones to breach the 400 run mark for the season.
In the bowling department for CSK, which has often looked weak, they have been done well too with bowlers picking up 85 wickets all through the season. Five of the Chennai bowlers managed to take more than 10 wickets each in the campaign with the South African pacer Lungi Ngidi being the most lethal with 10 wickets in 6 matches. The highest wicket-taker for the side though has been Shardul Thakur with 15 scalps in 12 games.
The Chennai side have been heavily dependent on their batting and have excelled while chasing during the season. CSK have opted to bowl first nine times out of the 10 tosses they won and have gone onto win seven of those matches this season. The only time they won the toss and elected to bat first was against the Rajasthan Royals where they were beaten by four wickets.
On Sunday evening, the Chennai Super Kings will take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final of the IPL and the men in yellow who have been a constant feature in the knockout stages of the tournament since it's inception will look to win a third title.
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