Ahmedabad, May 10 (IANS): Left-handed batting all-rounder Rachin Ravindra replaced fast-bowler Richard Gleeson as defending champions Chennai Super Kings won the toss and elected to bowl first against Gujarat Titans in Match 59 of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 at the Narendra Modi Stadium here on Friday.
CSK, coming after beating Punjab Kings by 28 runs at Dharamsala, need to win to boost their path of entering the IPL 2024 Playoffs and move to number three in the points table. On the other hand, the bottom-placed GT need the win to mathematically stay alive in the Playoffs race.
After winning the toss for just the second time in IPL 2024, CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad said, “Looks a good wicket, to be honest. It's been a chasing ground, so we will look to chase. Pretty much similar to Chennai. We didn't like the red soil wicket much.”
“Pretty relaxed (after the Dharamsala win). You tend to lose many games in IPL, you got to back everyone and make sure everyone is in a good head space. We had injuries in between, but happy now.”
GT skipper Shubman Gill said veteran wicketkeeper-batter Wriddhiman Saha is out due to a niggle, so Matthew Wade comes into the playing eleven, while Joshua Little makes way for debutant pacer Kartik Tyagi due to team combination reasons.
“Would have bowled first as well, looks a good wicket. There's a 1 percent chance of qualifying, so we are going to try hard for that. The mood is like any other match, we as a team believe in doing the best we can. Will be a good surface to bat on. Will score runs and try to restrict them.”
Playing XIs:
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (wk), Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande and Simarjeet Singh
Substitutes: Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Aravelly Avanish Rao, Sameer Rizvi and Mukesh Choudhary
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill (c), B. Sai Sudharsan, Shahrukh Khan, David Miller, Matthew Wade (wk), Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmad, Umesh Yadav, Mohit Sharma and Kartik Tyagi
Substitutes: Abhinav Manohar, Sandeep Warrier, BR Sharath, Darshan Nalkande and Jayant Yadav