Recent Match
Indian Premier League 2024, 1st Match, Chennai, Mar 22nd, 2024

Royal Challengers Bengaluru

(19.6 ov) 173/6

Chennai Super Kings

(18.4 ov) 176/4

Complete Chennai Super Kings won by 6 wkts

Player of Match: Mustafizur Rahman

Faf du Plessis:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru have won the toss and have opted to bat
Captains out for the toss now...
In case anyone is wondering, toss is at 7:40 PM today, five minutes from now.
Our correspondent from the ground, Prakash, pings that Mayank Dagar and Karn Sharma have started warming-up on the RCB side of the practice pitches. Won't be a surprise to see both of them play today!
CSK's 'new' captain Ruturaj Gaikwad brings out the IPL trophy to the stage which has his opposition skipper and a bunch of dignitaries from the cricket world. We're not too far away from the toss. I hope you are as excited as we are!!
Pitch Report: The square boundaries are 65m and 6m respectively and the straight boundary is long at 80m. It looks a great wicket, but there are a few cracks and the looseness around the cracks is worrying, it could lead to some inconsistent bounce, but it's generally looking good. The ball will turn, there's some dampness and the spinners could use that. Dew could be a factor, the captain winning the toss would want to bowl first, reckon Kevin Pietersen and Brian Lara, in their pitch report.
An expected sea of yellow in the crowd, but there are a few scattered red and black jerseys as well.
KiranT: MI, RR and RCB look the strongest this season. MI has the best possible Indian core - Rohit, Bumrah, Surya, Hardik, Ishan, Surya. Add Vishnu Vinod to the list with a great domestic season behind him.
Muralikrishna Chandrasekaran: Captaincy shift in CSK was expected, and this was the right time for that. I hope that the change was well received by Jadeja and hope that Rutu doesn't take the burden of the legacy left behind by MSD.
Mustafa Moudi: This season is officially a season of transition as 2 Captains who have won 10 IPL Trophies combined (5 Each) wont be leading anymore. End of an Era. Thanks for wonderful Memories Dhoni and Rohit. I doubt will El Clasico remain El Clasico without these 2 as Captains !!
And the opening ceremony is now underway with a few dance performances celebrating the growth of India and the IPL. The stadium is already about 70-80% full, let the excitement build!!
What’s new this year?
Not much, to be honest. Still a 10-team IPL with the same number of games as last year. However, bowlers will be allowed two bouncers per over this season. The impact sub rule continues this year, and teams continue to get two referrals - which can be used to check wides and no balls.
RCB haven’t historically traveled well to Chepauk, with their only win at this intimidating cauldron of a stadium coming in the inaugural season of the IPL. Chennai Super Kings have won the 7 games held at their home ground since then, which includes that drubbing in the 2019 IPL opener when they got the visitors all out for just 70 runs. CSK hold the ascendancy in the head-to-head record as well, winning 20 out of 31 clashes. Not a lot going in favour of RCB, specially when you also consider what tools they are getting to play in what has traditionally been a spin fortress. Nevertheless, trust the IPL to throw up a curveball right from Day 1!!
The RCB women won the Women’s Premier League earlier in the month. It was celebrated with great aplomb and throughout the night on the streets of Koramangala, Jayanagar all the way till Whitefield. Is that the little flip of the switch that this franchise needed? The motivation for the Men’s team to finally break the jinx? Time will tell…
Sources say that if you were a fast bowler who could touch 140 plus consistently, then you had a 1 in 3 chance of ending up in the 2024 RCB squad. Because the management have gone pace heavy this year, buying fast bowlers by the bucketloads. Alzarri Joseph, Lockie Ferguson, Yash Dayal, Reece Topley, Tom Curran have all been roped in to add to a pace battery that already had Siraj, Akash Deep and Vyshak Vijaykumar. Wanindu Hasaranga and Josh Hazlewood - two proven International bowlers, have been offloaded to make space for these quicks, giving RCB a new look this season with the ball.
This year, along with the coveted return of MS Dhoni, the IPL will also see the return of Virat Kohli who is recharged and ready to go after his little paternity break. There have been a few murmurs of phasing out Virat from the T20 squad ahead of the World Cup, and CSK faithful would be hoping those whispers haven’t reached the ears of the former RCB captain, because an irate Kohli with a point to prove could be a bowler’s worst nightmare. The batting looks a lot stronger for Bangalore this season, with the top three of Kohli, Maxwell and Faf being bolstered by a returning Rajat Patidar and a traded-in Cam Green.
Predictably, not too many changes in the CSK roster because why change something when it ain’t broken? However, Ambati Rayudu has called it a day and Devon Conway’s maimed thumb will keep him out the bulk of the season. But Chennai have found two able deputies in Rachin Ravindra and Daryl Mitchell - both of whom were the standouts for New Zealand last year at the World Cup. They will also be aided by a returning Mukesh Choudhary who missed 2023 due to an injury, and ‘Lord’ Thakur who finds a home once again in Chepauk. CSK splashed the cash on the hard hitting Sameer Rizvi in the auction, and it would be interesting to see how a 20-year-old with a collective first class experience of 7 games slots into this setup.
When Coldplay wrote ‘Look at the stars, look how they shine for you and everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow!’, they were probably referring to the Chepauk Stadium on a CSK matchday. And the yellow of CSK would be shining a bit brighter this year because they return home as champions. And so returns their Thala!! From ‘definitely not’ to ‘1 more season for the fans’, a certain MS Dhoni has re-emerged from cricketing hibernation to perhaps give the sporting world one last coveted glimpse this season. With his new look, long brown locks and even broader shoulders, Thala Dhoni is out there looking akin to an emperor, ready to galvanize his band of misfiring, has-been, ignored foot soldiers for One Last dance!!
However, there is a bit of a baton passing as far as this edition is concerned. The poster boys - Virat, Rohit, MS - none would be leading their respective sides. Hardik Pandya made more noise off the field than India's loss at the WC final when he was announced as the skipper of MI for 2024 after being traded in from Gujarat. And Ruturaj Gaikwad just suddenly came and posed for the shutterbugs as the new skipper of CSK. Just like that! The yore has taken a back seat. Time for Gen Z to hog all the limelight. But count the old heads out at your own peril.

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