Chennai Super Kings (CSK) takes on Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in their first away game of the season in Hyderabad on April 5. CSK has a favourable head-to-head record against SRH winning 14 of the 19 matches. 

Date and Venue

The CSK vs SRH IPL 2024 match will be played in Hyderabad on April 5 from 7.30 pm IST. This is the first time both the teams will be facing each other this season. Both teams are heading into this match after losing their previous game. CSK lost to DC while SRH went down against GT.

SRH vs CSK Match Preview- IPL 2024, Match 18

Sunrisers Hyderabad 

SRH started off their campaign with a loss to KKR. From needing six off five balls they went on to lose the game to bottle the match. Then they went all out against Mumbai Indians piled up 277 and won the match by 31 runs. Expected to build on the momentum, they lost their away match to Gujarat Titans. 

SRH have been guilty of not building on the momentum they had from their win against Mumbai Indians. They probably have the best overseas contingent of players and batters in the match. Travis Head and Heinrich Klaasen need to build on their explosiveness as the Indian batters and especially Mayank Agarwal need to step up. 

The seam attack looks experienced in the presence of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Pat Cummins. It is the absence of a quality spinner that is hurting the Sunrisers. Wanindu Hasaranga has already missed the first few games and he is expected to miss another week of the IPL as per the latest reports. There is too much pressure on Mayank Markande to deliver. 

SRH Squad 

Pat Cummins (c), Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Heinrich Klaasen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan. 

Chennai Super Kings 

After two back-to-back wins, CSK lost their previous match against Delhi Capitals. The batters failed to chase 192 which was a par score on the batting-friendly Vizag wicket. The CSK big-hitters were restricted beautifully by the DC bowlers who used masterful change-ups and slower deliveries in the back end to deny them any big hits. They also bowled accurate yorkers. 

Chennai Super Kings will not be flustered too much with the loss. They will keep the same combination barring Mustafizur Rahman who has flown back to Bangladesh to process his visa to play in the T20 World Cup. CSK has options in Moeen Ali and Maheesh Theekshana who can replace the Fizz in the XI. CSK has built the team’s culture on not changing their XI too much and will stick to it.

CSK Squad 

Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), MS Dhoni, Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Simarjeet Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Rachin Ravindra, Shardul Thakur, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Mustafizur Rahman, Avanish Rao Aravelly, Matheesha Pathirana

Key Battles

Travis Head vs Deepak Chahar 

Head has been giving SRH quick starts in the past two games that he played. That is allowing the middle-order batters to build on the momentum. Chahar will look to dismiss him inside the powerplay. 

Heinrich Klaasen vs Matheesha Pathirana 

Pathirana has already dismissed Klaasen once in the IPL which was in IPL 2023. The South African hard-hitter is aware of what to expect from the young Sri Lankan pacer and this sets up an exciting battle. 

MS Dhoni vs Pat Cummins 

Cummins has not dismissed MS Dhoni yet in the IPL but has just gone for 22 runs off 15 balls. In case he bats in the match, the SRH skipper should take it upon himself to dismiss him in the final overs.

Key Players

For CSK, skipper Rururaj Gaikwad, Rachin Ravindra Ajinkya Rahane, and Shivman DUbe hold the key with the bat. With the ball, Chaha, Jadeja and Pathirana are key. 

For SRH, Head, Klaasesn, Markram, and Abhishek Sharma are key with the bat. With the ball, Bhuvi, Pat Cummins, and Mayank Markande are key. Hyderabad is thin on spin heading into this game. 

Weather and Pitch

The weather conditions will be hot and humid for the SRH vs CSK game in Hyderabad. The temperatures will be around 40 degrees. By the evening, the temperatures will drop down to 30 degrees with partly cloudy and very warm weather. There is a negligible chance of rain which is expected to be a passing shower. 

Talking about the pitch, SRH posted 277 in the first game that was played here. They posted 162/8 in the next game against GT as the pitch became a little slower. A score of around 160-180 is more likely to be posted by the team batting first.

Conclusion

The 14-5 head-to-head in favor of Chennai Super Kings keeps them ahead in this game. CSK also has won four out of the last five games including the game played in Chennai last year. The game has all the making of being a high-scoring contest.

Also Read: Rohit Sharma’s influence blamed by Adam Gilchrist for Hardik Pandya getting booed in IPL