The 37th match of the IPL 2020 will witness Chennai Super Kings (CSK) taking on the Rajasthan Royals (RR) in a crunch match for both teams in Abu Dhabi. RR had defeated CSK by 16 runs in their previous meeting in Sharjah after scoring 216 runs batting first.
Both teams currently are placed at the bottom of the points table and only have an outside chance of making it into the playoffs if they win all their remaining matches.
Both the teams require to win this encounter in a handsome way and a loss here for either of the team would mean an end to their conquest of making it into the top fours, even with permutations and combinations included. In order to do so, they need to bring in their best players, and hence here is the COC Predicted Playing XIs for the CSK v RR match.
IPL 2020: Match 37, CSK v RR - Statistical Preview of the Match
CHENNAI SUPER KINGS
The CSK team has been a victim of its own rigid ideology. They have stuck with the same players despite them flopping throughout the tournament and the magic of MS Dhoni’s captaincy has not worked this time around. They failed to pick up enough backup for their aged players in the auction and it has come back to bite them hard in due course.
Apart from that, fitness issues have been the biggest bane for the CSK team. They lost their last match to Delhi Capitals, as Dwayne Bravo was unfit to bowl the last over and defend 17 runs.
Shane Watson has been limited in his abilities thus far and hasn’t been asked to bowl owing to his fragile body. The fitness issues have also resulted in poor fielding efforts and dropped catches by CSK players.
Only Du Plessis and MS Dhoni have looked fit enough to do their job properly, but the captain’s bat has been silent for the better part of the tournament so far.
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Bowling-wise, Deepak Chahar has been phenomenal but has gotten no support from the other end, apart from Sam Curran doing well here and there. In this match, however, expect CSK to finally bring in Imran Tahir in place of injured Bravo and maybe include Piyush Chawla in Karn Sharma’s place.
RAJASTHAN ROYALS
Many good things were expected from Rajasthan Royals this time around, given that they had a very good auction and picked up some good players as well. However, poor player management and selection have resulted in them being placed in the bottom half of the points table.
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Rajasthan Royals have made far too many experiments with their playing combination to succeed. The idea to open with Ben Stokes and persisting with it has been absurd. Also, Sanju Samson’s form has tapered off after a dream start to his IPL 13.
However, their biggest drawback has been backing the wrong players to come good, and more often than not was left disappointed.
Steve Smith’s captaincy has been uninspiring and keeping David Miller on the bench has hurt them. Not using young talent like Manan Vohra or Mayank Markande in place of Robin Uthappa or Shreyas Gopal has cost them badly.
Miscalculations have been made too often and that has hampered their chances of making it into the final four and hence, changes are the need of the hour for them to end the tournament on a high.
CSK COC Predicted Playing XI:
Sam Curran, Faf du Plessis, Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (C&WK), Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Imran Tahir
RR COC Predicted Playing XI:
Jos Buttler (WK), Robin Uthappa, Steve Smith (C), Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Rahul Tewatia, Riyan Parag, Jofra Archer, Shreyas Gopal, Ankit Rajpoot, Kartik Tyagi
