Thursday night’s washout at Chinnaswamy Stadium has made the race for the remaining semi-final spot from Group A tighter. Both Chennai Super Kings and Perth Scorchers will need a win on Saturday night at the same ground. Super Kings more so as it is their final group game while Scorchers have another one left against Lahore Lions. Rain is around in Bangalore again, though, and more of it is expected on Saturday evening.
After losing 7 for 55 to the spin of Sunil Narine and Kuldeep Yadav in Hyderabad, Scorchers will be relieved to face Super Kings’ slow bowlers on the smaller outfield in Bangalore, which will provide them more cushion on mishits. Also, while R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are fine spinners, they do not carry the same mystery about them as the Kolkata Knight Riders duo does. All seven Scorchers batsmen to fall in Hyderabad went slogging and swiping at the spinners, and will have to reevaluate that approach against Super Kings.
Scorchers did well with the ball to have Knight Riders on 125 for 6 but it was two successive late sixes again that settled the game. While it was Mitchell Marsh’s blows that had won it for Scorchers against Dolphins, it was Suryakumar Yadav’s strikes that did it for Knight Riders. Scorchers captain Adam Voges said he was proud of his young side for taking it so close against a powerful IPL team, but just close will not do it against another Indian franchise.
Form guide
Chennai Super Kings WLLWW (most recent first, completed matches only)
Perth Scorchers LWWWL
Watch out for
Adam Voges’ unbeaten 71 against Knight Riders was his first fifty in 32 T20 innings. The Scorchers captain went back in the crease to use the pull effectively off the spinners, and when he skipped out to them, he tried to push straight. His approach complemented his opening partner Craig Simmons’ power-hitting, and Scorchers will want their leader to fire again.
Suresh Raina hammered 90 off 43 in Super Kings’ previous match against Dolphins. Raina cracked as many as eight sixes during that innings, taking his tally in T20s to 198. No Indian batsman has hit 200 in the format. Raina went past 5000 T20 runs – the first Indian to do so – during that 90 and it would be fitting in a way if he brings up the sixes landmark with one of his trademark swipes over midwicket.
Stats and trivia
MS Dhoni is 23 short of 4000 T20 runs.
In his previous game, Raina became the leading run-scorer in the CLT20, overtaking Kieron Pollard
Brad Hogg needs three more to reach 100 T20 wickets
Quotes
“We are on a journey with a very young group at the moment. I just see them getting better and better all the time.”
Perth Scorchers captain Adam Voges
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