kolkata: Chennai Super Kings’ captain MS Dhoni walking out for one last time at the Eden Gardens will make the park look like Chepauk and Kolkata Knight Riders will have to treat this as another must-win away game to keep their hopes of playoffs alive when both sides meet here on Wednesday.
Till now, they have done a good job of living dangerously. The Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals matches have been close finishes, and the purple brigade will have to approach the match as a do-or-die.
CSK are down, but if one counts them out, they are living in a fool’s paradise.
While Ajinkya Rahane has been doing everything correctly both as the skipper and batter, he is bound to have a worried mind regarding the forms of middle-order batters like Venkatesh Iyer, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ramandeep Singh.
The bright spot, however, is the form of Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Andre Russell and Rinku Singh. Then comes the puzzle of choosing the fourth foreigner. Moeen Ali has delivered whenever called into action, and Rovman Powell would be seeking another chance to prove his mettle.
The bowling department is more settled and has delivered all through the season and will hopefully deliver tomorrow too.
But CSK will be interested in stopping its four-match losing streak by exacting revenge. While most in the team have faltered and floundered, the emergence of Ayush Mhatre, along with the dangerous Sam Curran and Dewald Brevis could be a handful for CSK. Noor Ahmad, Khaleel Ahmed and Matheesha Pathirana make the bowling unit compact and ready to rock any batting line-up. Finally, Dhoni would like to turn back the clock one last time. If he does that the match would go down to the wire.
More Norwesters warnings and a dry pitch would come into play during the toss as KKR prepared to play another high-voltage away game.