Press Trust of India
Chennai, April 8: The most consistent team across all seasons of the IPL, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) would look to put behind the off-field distractions and do what they are best at when they take on previous edition’s bottom-placed team Delhi Daredevils (DD) in their opening match of the T20 league here Thursday.
CSK were hounded by the spot-fixing scandal, in which their team principal Gurunath Meiyappan was indicted by a Supreme Court-monitored probe committee last year. But in spite of off field controversies, CSK made it to the second qualifier.
Such has been their might that three years without a title is being considered a trophy drought and they would look to bounce back and silence the critics. Managing to retain the nucleus of the side, CSK have strengthened their middle-order by bringing back Michael Hussey.
Their batting looks solid with Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith at the top of the order. In the middle-order the likes of Suresh Raina, Hussey, Dwayne Smith and skipper MS Dhoni can provide tremendous firepower. The spin department is in the able hands of Ravindra Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin – both of whom can bat a bit. Their pace attack also looks formidable with new Kiwi import Matt Henry, South African Kyle Abbott backed up by Mohit Sharma.
Against such a formidable side, the new look DD will definitely start underdogs. They will depend to a large extent on their new imports – Yuvraj Singh and the 36-year-old Zaheer Khan – both of whom are trying to come back into the national reckoning by using the IPL platform.
Under the captaincy of Jean-Paul Duminy, the team would be preparing to turn its fortunes around in the 2015 season. Their other key players are South Africans Quinton de Kock and Albie Morkel and Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews.
