The final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 will be played between the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) will take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Friday, October 15. The match will take place at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. KKR, led by Eoin Morgan, has booked their spot in the final for the first time after the 2014 edition.
Kolkata Knight Riders have been a resurgent force in this leg of the IPL and after just winning a couple of games in India’s leg, they have steamrolled the opponents in UAE and will now take on CSK after knocking out Royal Challengers Bangalore and then, the Kolkata Knight Riders. CSK, on the other hand, finds themselves in familiar territory, and if their performance in the first qualifier against KKR is anything to go by.
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CSK looks like a well-oiled unit and their veteran cricketers are finally standing up and being counted which bodes well for the 3-time champions. It will be a match between two master tacticians in MS Dhoni and Eoin Morgan and how they plan and plot in this final game might well define the course of the match.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK)
After Robin Uthappa’s impact in Qualifier 1, Suresh Raina’s fitness status may not be significant anymore. Ruturaj Gaikwad is only 23 short of KL Rahul’s season tally of 626 runs. CSK will want both of them to score lot more, and in the process defy two of KKR’s most potent bowlers in this UAE leg – Varun CV and Sunil Narine – with his superior spin game.
Probable XI: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Robin Uthappa, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (c&wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Josh Hazlewood
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR)
Andre Russell is said to have been bowling on the sidelines before Qualifier 2 on Wednesday and could be in the mix for the final. CSK has been coring at 6.85 in the middle overs since the tournament’s move to UAE. This comes as music to KKR’s ears, as they’ve seen their middle-overs bowling curve travel in the opposite direction – they picked 29 wickets in 9 innings with an ER of 6.19 in UAE.
Probable XI: Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Eoin Morgan (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Shakib Al Hasan/Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Lockie Ferguson, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakravarthy
Fantasy XI Suggestion #1:
Dinesh Karthik, Ambati Rayudu, Faf du Plessis, Shubman Gill, Venkatesh Iyer, Moeen Ali, Dwayne Bravo, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, and Varun Chakravarthy
Fantasy XI Suggestion #2:
MS Dhoni, Ambati Rayudu, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Rahul Tripathi, Ravindra Jadeja, Sunil Narine, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, and Varun Chakravarthy
