Chennai Super Kings (CSK) won the toss and opted to field first at the MA Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk on Monday, April 8 against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as they look to get out of the rut of losses, having lost their last two games. CSK made as many as three changes to their line-up as they aim to get the result on their side against a high-flying Knight Riders outfit. Among the changes, the biggest omission was pacer Deepak Chahar.
Chahar hasn't had a great start to his IPL 2024 campaign and was ruled out of the KKR clash. Skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad mentioned that Chahar had a niggle and hence was replaced by Shardul Thakur, who will be playing his first game of the season. Chahar has taken four wickets in the tournament so far but hasn't looked in the rhythm that he and his side would have desired.
The other two changes saw Mustafizur Rahman return to the side in place of Moeen Ali and Sameer Rizvi replace left-arm pacer Mukesh Choudhary.
Skipper Gaikwad said that the two losses hadn't dented the team's confidence and were eager to turn it around for the side and reckoned that bowling first was the right call. KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer too wanted to field first given the surface that was being used, the game against RCB was played on and the Super Kings chased down 174 comfortably.
KKR, on the other hand, made one change too with Vaibhav Arora starting in the XI and Suyash Sharma is likely to come in as an impact player with Harshit Rana missing out.
CSK's playing XI against KKR: Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Rachin Ravindra, Ajinkya Rahane, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni(w), Shardul Thakur, Mustafizur Rahman, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana
Impact subs: Shivam Dube, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Moeen Ali, Mitchell Santner
