Chennai Super Kings have never experienced a worse phase in the Indian Premier League and their faltering batters will have to deliver to arrest their steep slide in a must-win game against an upbeat Lucknow Super Giants in Lucknow on Monday.
CSK have never lost five games in a row, including an unprecedented three at the Chepauk, their proverbial fortress. If there is anyone who can get them out of the doldrums, it is Mahendra Singh Dhoni. However, even his return to captaincy following Ruturaj Gaikwad's injury could not turn their fortunes around in their previous outing against Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday.
Considering their struggles against spinners at home, the batters would not mind playing an away game in a desperate attempt to find form. The absence of their best batter, Gaikwad, thus makes their comeback bid all the more difficult.
CSK have been accused of sheltering players past their prime in the past and those questions have expectedly resurfaced after a record losing streak. The lack of power-hitters in their squad has also become a talking point, Dhoni himself conceding that even targeting 60 runs in the powerplay is a tad too ambitious for them.
Openers Rachin Ravindra and Devon Conway are two fine batters but expecting them to go hammer and tongs from ball one goes against their style of play.
Rahul Tripathi, coming in place of Gaikwad at three, will be under immense pressure to perform. The team also needs to get more out of veteran all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.
Shivam Dube needs more support on the power-hitting front and best placed to do that is Dhoni himself, but his constant change of batting position, the last outing was at No .9, makes the task tougher for the World Cup-winning skipper.
After the last game, CSK batting coach Mike Hussey said his team is not going to throw in the towel just yet.
"I still think we've got the right players. There's a lot of talk about the style of our play. But the players we've got, we don't want to ask them to play in a completely different way; that's natural to them," said Hussey after the loss to KKR.
Their opponents, LSG, will be looking for their fourth win on the trot having gained some much-needed consistency in a tournament of fine margins.
Bowling was their weakest link at the start of the competition after injuries to main pacers, but it was the bowlers who helped them tide over Gujarat Titans in Lucknow on Saturday.
It was remarkable how the likes of Avesh Khan, Ravi Bishnoi and Shardul Thakur were able to stem the flow of runs at the back end of Titans' innings after a flying start from the opposition.
The Lucknow pitch, traditionally slow, has been better for batting and that is suiting the likes of Nicholas Pooran, who is striking the ball as cleanly as ever.
The absence of Mitchell Marsh at the top of the order allowed Rishabh Pant to open alongside an in-form Aiden Markram on Saturday.
Short of runs, Pant did alright at the top of the order but will he give himself more opportunities as an opener following Marsh's return?
The Australian has been one of their best batters thus far, making Pant's promotion to the top trickier.
Teams (from):
Lucknow Super Giants: Rishabh Pant (captain & wicketkeeper), David Miller, Aiden Markram, Aryan Juyal (wk), Himmat Singh, Matthew Breetzke, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Mitchell Marsh, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Arshin Kulkarni, Ayush Badoni, Shardul Thakur, Avesh Khan, Akash Deep, Manimaran Siddharth, Digvesh Rathi, Akash Singh, Shamar Joseph, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav, Ravi Bishnoi.
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), M S Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Matheesha Pathirana, Noor Ahmad, Ravichandran Ashwin, Devon Conway, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Rachin Ravindra, Rahul Tripathi, Vijay Shankar, Sam Curran, Shaik Rashid, Anshul Kamboj, Mukesh Choudhary, Deepak Hooda, Gurjanpreet Singh, Nathan Ellis, Jamie Overton, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Ramakrishnan Ghosh, Shreyas Gopal, Vansh Bedi, Andre Siddarth.
Match starts: 19.30 IST.
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