Chennai Super Kings vs Sunrisers Hyderabad, 17th Match - Live Cricket Score, Commentary

Good start

Uthappa is looking in good touch but the focus right now has been on Ruturaj. He finally fetches his first boundary of the season in his 4th appearance this season. Can you believe that? The orange cap winner of 2021 has had a jittery start to the tournament but opponents very well know that it's hard to stop him once he finds his groove.

Toss -SRH bowl first

SRH will bowl first after winning the toss and on expected lines, they have dropped Romario Shepherd. Marco Jansen replaces Romario in the playing XI and Abdul Samad has been left out as well. Shashank Singh replaces him in the XI. For CSK, Maheesh Theekshana comes into the mix in place of Dwaine Pretorius. This is a change to watch out for. He is still pretty much a mysterious spinner for most of the batters around the world.

Teams:

Chennai Super Kings (Playing XI): Robin Uthappa, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Ravindra Jadeja(c), Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni(w), Dwayne Bravo, Chris Jordan, Maheesh Theekshana, Mukesh Choudhary

Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson(c), Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran(w), Shashank Singh, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Marco Jansen, Umran Malik, T Natarajan

No dew

Both teams will be relieved that they don't have to bowl with the wet ball, something that has really hampered many bowling attacks. Graeme Swann in his pitch report reckons that this will not be a very high-scoring venue.

Build up

15 games into the season and three teams have failed to open their account. Two out of those three are set to kick off the jam-packed weekend. Chennai Super Kings, the defending champions, have surprisingly lost three on the trot to begin their campaign and Sunrisers Hyderabad have lost their two matches as well. Both these teams have issues to deal with and it will be interesting to see what strategies they employ to tackle them.

While it's no secret that CSK are missing Deepak Chahar, it is the batting that has let them down so far this season. They did make 210 against Lucknow Super Giants but faltered in the other two games. And the issues stem from the top. Ruturaj Gaikwad, their batting mainstay from last season, has made two runs so far in the tournament. If he gets going, then there's no stopping him as we have seen. But CSK really need him to start firing as soon as possible and cannot afford to lose four on the trot. Shivam Dube has looked their best batter so far and someone like Ambati Rayudu needs to step up as well considering the amount of money CSK paid to get him back in the squad.

Despite getting blown away with the bat in the last game, CSK might still want to reserve three out of the four overseas slots for the bowlers. For SRH, the issues are quite similar. The openers Kane Williamson and Abhishek Sharma haven't clicked. They will likely persist with those two since they have played just two games so far but that batting unit will have to fire in unison. They could have opened their account in the previous game but the middle order collapsed at a crucial juncture. Washington Sundar has impressed in both the matches so far but it's the other expensive signing Romario Shepherd who will be under the pump to deliver. Hopefully, these two teams give us a cracker in their quest to register their first win.