The giant tournament will begin today at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. The current title holders CSK will face the KKR in the tournament opener. Only 25% of the crowd is allowed in the stadium but the hype over the overall tournament is huge.
This opening match is special for so many reasons firstly because Dhoni has given up his captaincy so the CSK will be playing will be with a different full time captain since the inception of the IPL. That will be very interesting to watch how the CSK perform under the leadership of Ravindra Jadeja. Dhoni has been the backbone of the CSK team and it's weird to think about CSK without thinking about MS Dhoni. Even though Jadeja is the newly appointed captain Dhoni will be there to assist him in any way possible, that's the reason I think he hasn't quit the game yet.
Now that Dhoni has resigned as the captain, it will be very interesting to how her performs with the bat and performs as a wicket keeper. His wicket keeping is not an issue as he is still pretty good at it. But his batting over the last couple of years is not up to mark, even though he finished some really close games last year with the bat. CSK has a strong top order batting line up in Ruturaj Gaikwad, Moin Ali, Davon Conway, Ambati Rayudu, Robin Uthappa and Jadeja himself. As far as the bowling is concerned CSK got a big blow with an injury to Deepak Chahar who usually leads the bowling attack for Chennai. So bowling would be a challenge for CSK this year.
On the other hand KKR is also going through some big changes as Shreyas Iyer will lead the team this year. And there is no Eoin Morgan in the team along with Dinesh Karthik. So there is lot banking on the young shoulders of Shreyas Iyer. He still has a very good team to go with, KKR has got Venkatesh Iyer who was excellent in the last season and he also played for India in the recent times, so his morale will be high. Nitesh Rana is another player who is in good touch. KKR retained Andre Russel, Sunil Narine and Varun Charkravarthy. All are match winners on their good days. KKR also have a trump card up their sleeves in Pat Cummins who has been an revelation for Australia in the last few months or so.
So this will be an exciting opening game of the tournament to kick start the IPL 2022 season. Both teams will be looking start the season on a winning note and carry on the momentum.
0 Comments