Big picture: How to recover from mistakes
There’s this thing in gully cricket in India. The first ball is just for fun. “Trials, all reals” is the standard schoolboy war cry, and it might be one that Chennai Super Kings (CSK) adopt for the rest of IPL 2026. Sanju Samson and Ruturaj Gaikwad, in particular, will want this hard reset. Their opening partnerships read 14 (12), 14 (12) and 9 (5). Both of them are good batters. Both of them can play shots all around the wicket. Both of them occupy a crucial position in this team. With both of them failing, everything is failing.
Should Samson and Gaikwad click through, there is a chance the CSK team that the management thought they were building might finally make an appearance. A better opening partnership sets Shivam Dube up to maximise his match-up against spin. A better opening partnership sets Dewald Brevis up whenever he plays his first game of the season. It might be Saturday. A better opening partnership takes the pressure off their two young rookies down the order and maybe even cover for their bowlers’ mistakes. They’ll be given time to come good. Then they’ll be expected to do it again and again. CSK have given themselves no margin for error.
Delhi Capitals (DC) are dealing with fallout of their own. David Miller didn’t take the tie and ended up with the loss. He would have reasoned that he had a better chance of getting two runs off a good bowler like Prasidh Krishna, who won the orange cap last year, than there was of Kuldeep Yadav scoring one. Batters do choose to do this; they do back themselves over the non-specialists, just that in this case there was no room for error, no time to recover.
Team news: Brevis possible, Dhoni not yet
MS Dhoni still needs time to recover from his calf injury. Brevis “is not far off” a return, said coach Stephen Fleming. If he is ready for Saturday, one of Kartik Sharma and Prashant Veer is likely to be bumped to the bench.
Chennai Super Kings (probable): 1 Sanju Samson (wk), 2 Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), 3 Ayush Mhatre, 4 Shivam Dube, 5 Dewald Brevis, 6 Sarfaraz Khan, 7 Kartik Sharma/Prashant Veer, 8 Jamie Overton, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Noor Ahmed, 11 Anshul Kamboj, 12 Khaleel Ahmed
Nitish Rana has scores of 15, 0 and 5 so far in this IPL. Ashutosh Sharma is waiting in the wings. Given they needed some help down the order in their last game, will DC stick with their No. 3 or twist?
Delhi Capitals (probable): 1 Pathum Nissanka, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Nitish Rana/Ashutosh Sharma, 4 Sameer Rizvi, 5 David Miller, 6 Axar Patel, 7 Tristan Stubbs, 8 Vipraj Nigam, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 T Natarajan, 12 Mukesh Kumar
In the spotlight: Sarfaraz, Axar and Kuldeep
Sarfaraz Khan has been a clear bright spot for CSK with 99 runs in three innings at a strike rate of 202. He has shown a willingness to hit out early. His first ten-ball strike rate is 202. Between 11 and 20, he goes at 193 and between 21 and 30, he goes at 220. Batting in the lower middle order, especially for a team that is unsure of itself, is hard work and Sarfaraz is doing it quite well.
Chennai is not a spinner’s paradise anymore but DC have with them a pair that don’t always need the conditions to be in their favour. Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav are excellent at denying batters their preferred boundary options. That is fast becoming the very essence of bowling in T20 cricket. While Axar has decent numbers against CSK, Kuldeep averages 60, which is his worst against any IPL team.
Stats: Rahul box office against CSK
Pitch and conditions: Prepare for some heat
There are indications that this game will take place on a pitch that is less conducive to run-scoring, at least in the first innings. Summer temperatures in Chennai are approaching extremes, with even the nights being quite warm.
Chennai Super Kings
14 April vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Chennai
18 April vs Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad
23 April vs Mumbai Indians in Mumbai
Delhi Capitals
18 April vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Bengaluru
21 April vs Sunrisers Hyderabad in Hyderabad
25 April vs Punjab Kings in Delhi
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