IPL 2018, KKR vs CSK Match Preview: Who will win the battles of batsmen?

The current season of the Indian Premier League is proving to be one of the most exciting season so far. On one hand, defending champions Mumbai Indians are at the bottom of the standings, while on the other, returning team Chennai Super Kings are leading the Points table.

In the 33^rd match of IPL 11, Kolkata Knight Riders battles Chennai Super Kings at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Currently, both the team are in the top four at the Points Table and are more likely to make it to the Play-offs.

Talking about their last matches, Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore at RCB’s home ground by six wickets while Chennai Super Kings became victorious against Delhi Daredevils by 13 runs.

However, Kolkata Knight Riders has been struggling throughout the tournament and could only manage to win half of their games whereas Chennai Super Kings has always been the most consistent team in all seasons.

Some of KKR’s batsmen are in good form, including Chris Lynn, Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik and are considered key players in the squad.

In the current season, MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings has managed to touch 200-plus total on four different occasions with the help of their strong batting line-up.

Shane Watson is one of the season’s two centurions along with KXIP’s Chris Gayle. Watson has scored 281 runs in eight innings played so far with a strike rate of 166.27.

Additionally, CSK’s Ambati Rayudu is just runs short from obtaining the Orange Cap. He has smashed 370 runs so far at a strike rate of 156.11.

Apart from Watson and Rayudu, Chennai Super Kings skipper MS Dhoni is currently the most dangerous batsman in the complete CSK’s squad. His match finishing quality has always been praised by cricket fans.

Dhoni has scored 286 runs so far in the eight innings played at a whopping strike rate of 169.23.

The match today - KKR vs CSK is being considered as a battle of batsmen as both the team has good batting line-up in their squad and the match is expected to be a high scoring game.

However, there are bowlers in both the team to watch out for. Kolkata Knight Riders has wicket-taking spinner in their squad such as Sunil Narine, Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla while Chennai Super Kings’s two debutant bowlers Lungi Ngidi and KM Asif impressed with their performance in the last match.

Match Predictions – Statistically, Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings has faced each other on 17 occasions, out of which CSK has managed to clinch the match 11 times and KKR won just six games.

Chennai Super Kings is the only team in the IPL 2018 to have not bowled any no ball so far.