M.S. Dhoni and Mohammad Hafeez last met as rival captains at Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in March. That night, India and Pakistan raised the curtain on the World T20, before a raucous full-house in an atmosphere thick with tension. They will come face to face again at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday, but in circumstances that induce far less excitement.
Dhoni and Hafeez will lead out Chennai Super Kings and Lahore Lions respectively in the low-key setting of the Oppo Champions League T20, with an eye on securing passage out of Group A.
CSK arrives fresh from a 54-run defeat of Dolphins, the foundation for the result a tall total of 242.
Suresh Raina delivered a reminder that whatever the relevance of the tournament, or its context, he was still a champion of the short format. He, and the rest of the CSK batsmen, will relish the prospect of playing at least three games at the same ground.
“Being in one spot is an advantage,” CSK coach Stephen Fleming admitted on Wednesday, “because you’re usually travelling and bouncing all over the country. But we need to make the most of it.”
Lahore Lions has not featured in the CLT20 before, but the team,was not an unknown quantity, Fleming felt. “We’re familiar with their players and the way they play. We understand that probably winning the next two games can get us through. This is the next step,” he said.
CSK’s army of big hitters may appear fearsome but that would not deter his side, Lahore’s Wahab Riaz stated.
“It’s going to be a different game. Chennai scored 242 but Dolphins also scored 188. Our bowling attack is strong,” he said. With the batting talents of Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad to fall back on, Lahore may offer CSK a stiff challenge, provided rain stays away.
Teams (from):
Chennai Super Kings: Dwayne Smith, Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina, Faf du Plessis, MS Dhoni(c & k), Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohit Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Ishwar Pandey, Pawan Negi, John Hastings, Samuel Badree, Mithun Manhas
Lahore Lions: Umar Siddiq, Ahmed Shehzad, Nasir Jamshed, Mohammad Hafeez(c), Saad Nasim, Umar Akmal(k), Wahab Riaz, Asif Raza, Mustafa Iqbal, Adnan Rasool, Aizaz Cheema, Mohammad Saeed, Ali Manzoor, Agha Salman, Imran Ali.
