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With exactly a week of action left for the completion of the league stage of the Indian Premier League 2020, surprisingly no team has confirmed their play-offs spot. The Thursday’s encounter is scheduled to take place between the bottom dwellers Chennai Super Kings and two times champions Kolkata Knight Riders. The match is scheduled to take place at the Dubai International Stadium in Dubai and the encounter will mark the 49th match of this season.

Chennai Super Kings are out of the race and this is the first time in the history of the tournament, the MS Dhoni led team is failing to make it in the top four. While, the Kolkata Knight Riders seem to be in a tricky 5th spot, a win here would push them to the 4th spot and they will be KXIP lose their next encounter against the Rajasthan Royals. 

The previous encounter between the two sides saw the Kolkata side come out as the best. KKR after winning the toss elected to bat first and with their opener Rahul Tripathi scoring a fluent 81 of 51 balls and anchoring the innings ensured the team reached a decent total of 167. The Men in Yellow well in place to win the match when they were racing away at 99/2 in the 12 overs. But the brilliant death bowling of Sunil Narine and Pat Cummins ensured the Chennai side ended up on the losing side by a margin of 10 runs.

The Chennai Super Kings though will be playing for pride, they are coming into this match on the back of a wonderful victory against the mighty RCB side. While, the Eoin Morgan led side were defeated by the KXIP by a comfortable 8 wickets and the Kolkata side will be hoping they can turn things in their favor before it's all too late.

Can the three times champions Chennai Super Kings spoil the KKR party? Or will KKR be able to put the Punjab side under pressure by bagging the important 2 points?

Match Toss Time: 17:30 Local (19:00 IST)

Match Start Time: 18:00 Local (19:30 IST)

Match Venue: Dubai International Stadium, Dubai

Weather Report

Clear skies are expected throughout the day, which is ideal for the sport. The temperatures are expected to be hovering the range of 27-29 degrees. While, the humidity is likely to touch the 58 percent mark at peak.

Pitch

The pitch in Dubai has recently been in favor of the bowlers as the surface has slowed down considerably. But the Sunrisers team managed to score 219 runs batting first and the team chasing were knocked out for 131. This does suggest that the team chasing would definitely be under the pump if anything above 170 is scored by the team batting first. The due was not seen playing much a role in the previous games but with the humidity on a bit higher side it could play a part in this encounter.

Team News

Chennai Super Kings finally managed to win a game and that too in a very convincing manner. The team did a wonderful job especially the young Ruturaj Gaikwad who played a quality innings to take the Men in Yellow home. The management will be happy to feature the same Xl that handed them a comfortable win over the in-form RCB side.

Kolkata Knight Riders on the other side have had to bench their star all- rounder Andre Russell as he was seen struggling with form and also with Lockie Ferguson bowling really good, it was a tough call to make. But now the team’s hopes of making it to the play- offs laying in the next two matches, they would be looking forward to having the experienced Andre Russell in place of the kiwis pacer Lockie Ferguson.

Probable Playing Xl

Chennai Super Kings (CSK): Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, N Jagadeesan, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Imran Tahir, Monu Kumar

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Eoin Morgan (c), Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Andre Russell/Lockie Ferguson, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Prasidh Krishna, Varun Chakravarthy

CSK vs KKR Fantasy Team

Cricwizz Fantasy Team

MS Dhoni, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Sunil Narine, Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, Varun Chakravarthy, Pat Cummins, Deepak Chahar

Captain Picks: Sam Curran (CSK), Shubman Gill (KKR)

 Sam Curran (CSK)

Vice- Captain Picks: Faf du Plessis (CSK), Sunil Narine (KKR)

Faf du Plessis (CSK)

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