Thursday’s washout in Hyderabad meant that Sunrisers Hyderabad joined Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals as the three confirmed teams for the playoffs and the race is now for only one spot with two teams in fray -- CSK and RCB.
The Super Kings are currently fourth in the standings with 12 points from as many games but the defeat against Gujarat Titans on Friday has added pressure on them, and they now find themselves in a must-win situation in their remaining two matches.
Defending champions Chennai Super Kings will be hoping to make up for the loss of their frontline bowlers, and take forward the ‘bowling’ positives from their last fixture when they take on a struggling bottom-placed Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Friday.
With 10 points from nine matches so far, the Yellow Brigade share similar figures with Lucknow Super Giants, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Capitals, and as such will be desperately looking to break away from the logjam
Both sides head into the match with contrasting fortunes, as the CSK brigade are coming off two successive victories, and are comfortably placed at the third position in the IPL points tally with four wins from their six outings so far.
Conway smashed 87 runs off 49 balls, while Gaikwad scored 41 runs off 33 balls, and gave Chennai a strong hand in the first innings. Put to bat, Chennai had an amazing start to their innings as their opening batters Gaikwad and Conway smashed 57 runs in just 6 overs.
In a chase of 174, Chennai began well with 51/0 in power-play and Devon Conway getting 56. But the rest of the batters couldn't do much, falling to slower balls as Chennai were restricted to 160/8.
After Maheesh Theekshana and Moeen Ali took five wickets between themselves to keep Royal Challengers Bangalore to 173/8, Bangalore's bowling attack adopted the pace off approach successfully in restricting Chennai to 160/8 in their 20 overs.
On a pitch which had some assistance for spinners, Bangalore were off to a steady start as Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli hit eight boundaries between themselves to be at 51/0 in the first five overs.
In a stadium where majority of the fans sported yellow jerseys and cheered loudly when MS Dhoni walked in for the toss as the captain, Gaikwad and Conway dished out a stunning, dominant show after having the usual slow and steady Chennai start when 40/0 came in powerplay.
