IPL 2021, LIVE Cricket Score, Mumbai Indians (MI) vs Chennai Super Kings (CSK): Hello and welcome to Match 26 of IPL 2021 where the biggest rivals in this tournament - Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings - will take on each other. CSK are in great form, winning back-to-back games while MI are struggling to find consistency in this season. It will be exciting to see which of these teams come at the top at the end of the match tonight. None likes to lose against each other. Watch this space for more updates.
Preview: Mumbai Indians (MI) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) face each other for the first time in IPL 2021. The biggest rivalry of the tournament is happening in this edition quite late than expected. MI and CSK are two of the top teams in the competition with Mumbai having won the title five times while Chennai lifting the trophy thrice.
In the current season, CSK are coming into this mouth-watering contest as the favourites, having won all their games so far since losing the first match against Delhi Capitals (DC). After last year's average outing, where they even failed to make the cut into the playoffs, CSK worked on their weaknesses, fixed their squad and came back strongly in IPL 2021.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of Chennai Super Kings and Rohit Sharma, captain of Mumbai Indians. Sportzpics
CSK openers Faf du Plessis and Ruturaj Gaikwad have been in red hot form and MI's new-ball bowlers will have their task cut out against the pair. Du Plessis especially has looked in great touch in this season. CSK bat deep and the majority of their batsmen are in good form. The only weakness that one may see is in their bowling department with Shardul Thakur being expensive at the start and the spinners not being able to control the flow of runs at times.
Mumbai Indians have plenty of problems. A key reason in their inconsistent show so far in the league is due to their average batting display. The middle-order and the late middle order is short of runs and the top 3 are blowing hot and cold. The fact that Quinton de Kock was among runs in the last game should give Rohit Sharma huge confidence. Trent Boult has not been able to pick wickets early on and he would like to quickly change that. MI will also be hoping their No 3 Suryakumar Yadav gets a big one against CSK. He has had some starts but has failed to capitalise on those.
Delhi's wicket should begin to slow down with spinners coming back into action again. The dew may also play a part so the teams may look to bat second at Kotla.
Squads:
Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma(c), Quinton de Kock(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Krunal Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Piyush Chawla, Dhawal Kulkarni, Saurabh Tiwary, Aditya Tare, Adam Milne, Chris Lynn, James Neesham, Ishan Kishan, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Mohsin Khan, Arjun Tendulkar, Marco Jansen, Yudhvir Singh
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Shardul Thakur, Lungi Ngidi, Deepak Chahar, Dwayne Bravo, Robin Uthappa, Cheteshwar Pujara, Karn Sharma, Imran Tahir, Jason Behrendorff, Krishnappa Gowtham, Mitchell Santner, Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore, Hari Nishanth, N Jagadeesan, KM Asif, Harishankar Reddy, Bhagath Varma
