The 12th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will begin with a mouth-watering clash between MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings and Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Saturday.

A lot will be riding on this match as defending champions CSK will look to get off to a perfect start in the tournament in their bid for a historic fourth IPL crown. As for RCB, they will eye a statement victory against one of the most consistent teams in the history of the cash-rich league.

However, things aren’t going to be easy for Kohli’s boys as apart from being up against one of the top sides in the tournament, they will also have to fight against history in the opener.

CSK and RCB have squared off 22 times in the past with the ‘Yellow Brigade’ winning 14 encounters. This is the maximum number of wins that CSK have acquired against any team in the IPL.

To make matters worse for Bangalore, they have lost their last six matches against Dhoni’s troops. Moreover, RCB’s last win in Chennai came way back in 2008.

Over the years, Bangalore have been Chennai’s favourite whipping boys in the IPL as the aforementioned records suggest. However, the defending champions won’t be taking their opponents lightly as on paper, RCB possess one of the most potent sides in the upcoming edition of the league.

Squads:

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (c), Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo, Murali Vijay, Karn Sharma, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu, David Willey, Imran Tahir, Faf du Plessis, Deepak Chahar, Sam Billings, Mohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Dhruv Shorey, Monu Kumar, Mitchell Santner, Chaitanya Bishnoi, N Jagadeesan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, KM Asif

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli (c), Umesh Yadav, Parthiv Patel, AB de Villiers, Tim Southee, Moeen Ali, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Yuzvendra Chahal, Colin de Grandhomme, Pawan Negi, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Akshdeep Nath, Milind Kumar, Marcus Stoinis, Navdeep Saini, Shimron Hetmyer, Heinrich Klaasen, Himmat Singh, Mohammed Siraj, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, Kulwant Khejroliya, Devdutt Padikkal, Prayas Barman

First Published: Mar 21, 2019 16:44 IST