Chennai Super Kings will have the home advantage, but stats favour Mumbai for the qualifier 1.
The first finalist of the ongoing edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be decided when Chennai Super Kings (CSK) take on Mumbai Indians in the Qualifier 1 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, here on Tuesday.
Both the sides faced contrasting results in their final group stage games. While Mumbai are riding high on confidence after clinching a convincing nine-wicket win against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to acquire pole position in the points table, Chennai faced a devastating loss to Kings XI Punjab.
The Mumbai-base franchise seems to have all their bases covered. In Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma, they have one of the finest opening pair in this edition. They have big hitters like Hardik Pandya and Keiron Pollard who have been in top form in this IPL. And their bowling boasts of having one of the best seam attacks, having the likes of Jasprit Bumrah and Lasith Malinga in their arsenal.
On the other hand, Chennai's bowling attack was taken to the cleaners by Kings XI's batsmen in their final game. The Yellow Brigade have their shortcomings in all departments, something which skipper MS Dhoni is aware off. However, the three-time IPL champion have the experience of playing in big matches and handling pressure, something which is known to all.
The excessive humidity and the spinning Chinnaswamy track is bound to assist the home team and it would require a herculean task from Mumbai to beat Chennai in their own backyard as said by Pandya.
"Definitely, Chennai is a different challenge. It will be a cracker of a game. We just hope to get the best out of that one and go through to the finals," Pandya had said after the match against KKR.
Squads
Mumbai Indians: Yuvraj Singh, Lasith Malinga, Rohit Sharma (c), Kieron Pollard, Aditya Tare, Mitchell McClenaghan, Suryakumar Yadav, Ben Cutting, Jayant Yadav, Quinton de Kock (wk), Evin Lewis, Barinder Sran, Siddhesh Lad, Jasprit Bumrah, Beuran Hendricks, Pankaj Jaiswal, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan (wk), Anmolpreet Singh, Krunal Pandya, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Mayank Markande, Rasikh Salam
Chennai Super Kings: Harbhajan Singh, Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo, MS Dhoni (c), Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Murali Vijay, Karn Sharma, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu, Imran Tahir, Faf du Plessis, Deepak Chahar, Mohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Dhruv Shorey, Scott Kuggeleijn, Monu Kumar, Mitchell Santner, Chaitanya Bishnoi, N Jagadeesan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, KM Asif
