Hyped as one of the favourites to clinch the title, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings will be aiming for their second successive win when they take on Mumbai Indians, once again sans Sachin Tendulkar, in the Indian Premier League match here on Tuesday.
Both teams have international stars capable of winning a match on their own but Dhoni was confident about keeping their slate clean.
With some solid batting, the Chennai team had posted a 12-run an over average in their first match against Kings XI Punjab on Saturday, which they won by 33 runs. But their not so effective bowling in the absence of new-ball specialists Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel, who are yet to join the team, makes them a tad vulnerable.
The Mumbai team, on the other hand, will be gunning for their first win in the tournament after losing to the Rahul Dravid-led Bangalore Royal Challengers on Sunday. The team will once again be without Tendulkar, who is recovering from a groin injury, and would be led by Harbhajan Singh.
It will be interesting to see Harbhajan and Matt-hew Hayden facing each other after their acrimonious face-off during India’s tour of Australia earlier this year. Hayden had predicted that the competition would witness scores in excess of 200 an innings, and the Chepauk wicket looks set to throw up a run-feast.
“A score of 200 plus is a distinct possibility and in Mohali, we saw over 400 runs scored in just 40 overs. We will witness high scores regularly,” he said.
The Mumbai team is no less strong with Sanath Jayasuriya, Dominic Thornely, Robin Uthappa and Shaun Pollock forming the top order in batting.
The twin spin attack of Harbhajan and Jayasuriya could pose a lot of problems to the host batsmen.