CSK take on struggling Daredevils (Preview)

Table-toppers Chennai Super Kings (CSK) would take on a struggling Delhi Daredevils when they clash in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium here on Tuesday.

The Super Kings have sealed a place in the playoffs with 16 points from 12 games while the Daredevils are on the penultimate spot on the table with just four wins from 12 games.

As the outcome of the contest will bring no significant changes to the ladder, it will be an experiment for the Super Kings to test some of their bench strength while Daredevils would want to win the contest and bow out of the tournament with their heads held high.

After a few below-par performances, two-time champions CSK have got back to winning ways after they beat Rajasthan Royals at Chepauk on Sunday night. Chasing CSK's 157/5, the Royals fell short by 12 runs as left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja pocketed 4/11.

The Daredevils, in their last encounter, went close but could not hunt down the target against Sunrisers Hyderabad, who pulled off a stunning 6-run victory on Saturday.

The head-to-head encounters also tilt the contest in favour of the Super Kings, who have clinched 9 out of 14 games.

However, while going into the encounter, both teams will not yield an inch of space as CSK would want to end in top-2 and Delhi would not want their pride being hurt more.

After failing to fire in the last few matches, CSK's West Indies opener Dwayne Smith would want to make the most of the last few encounters he has in hand before getting into the playoffs. South African Faf du Plesis and Suresh Raina would also want to do the same.

The likes of the veteran seamer Ashish Nehra and Jadeja would share the load of the CSK bowling attack which has been a little inconsistent for the last few matches.

The Daredevils are looking to end the tourney on a high and would simply throw in all the dices in order to cause an upset. Skipper JP Duminy would hope his talismanic all-rounder Yuvraj Singh would come good including top-order willowers Shreyas Iyer and Quinton de Kock.

The squads:

Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohit Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Baba Aparajith, Ishwar Pandey, Mithun Minhas, Pawan Negi, Ronit More, Rahul Sharma, Ankush Bains, Irfan Pathan, Pratyush Singh, Ekalavya Dwivedi, Dwayne Smith, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Michael Hussey, Matt Henry, Samuel Badree, Kyle Abbott, Andrew Tye.

Delhi Daredevils: JP Duminy (captain), Quinton de Kock, Mayank Agarwal, Manoj Tiwary, Yuvraj Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, Angelo Mathews, Kedar Jadhav, Imran Tahir, Amit Mishra, Shahbaz Nadeem, Zaheer Khan, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohammed Shami, C.M. Gautam, Gurinder Sandhu, Jayant Yadav, Albie Morkel, Srikar Bharat, Marcus Stoinis, Dominic Muthuswamy, Shreyas Iyer, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Karapak Jiyas, Travis Head.