A recent trend of things going Punjab Kings‘ (PBKS) way at Chepauk continued as Shreyas Iyer won the toss and chose to bowl on a pitch expected to be full of runs. PBKS have won each of their last three games against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at this ground. PBKS are going in with an unchanged team, with Priyansh Arya likely to come in as impact sub.
CSK handed an IPL debut to Prashant Veer, the 20-year-old left-arm spin-bowling allrounder whom they signed for INR 14.2 crore at the auction. He slots in alongside their other INR 14.2 crore buy Kartik Sharma. To make room for Veer, Matthew Short has made way. Given CSK are batting first, it is unlikely Short will play a part in this game. CSK’s starting XI only has two overseas players; Jamie Overton could come in as an impact sub and make it three but there’s a chance Rahul Chahar could push him for that spot.
MS Dhoni and Dewald Brevis, who attended the CSK nets on the eve of the match, remain sidelined with a calf injury and a side injury respectively.
Chennai Super Kings: 1 Sanju Samson (wk), 2 Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), 3 Ayush Mhatre, 4 Sarfaraz Khan, 5 Shivam Dube, 6 Kartik Sharma, 7 Prashant Veer, 8 Noor Ahmad, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Anshul Kamboj, 11 Khaleel Ahmed. Impact Player bench: Jamie Overton, Rahul Chahar, Matthew Short, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Gurjapneet Singh.
Punjab Kings: 1 Prabhsimran Singh (wk), 2 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 3 Cooper Connolly, 4 Shashank Singh, 5 Nehal Wadhera, 6 Marcus Stoinis, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Xavier Bartlett, 9 Vijaykumar Vyshak, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal. Impact Player bench: Suryansh Shedge, Priyansh Arya, Vishnu Vinod, Pravin Dubey, Harpreet Brar.