IPL Trader’s Tips: Will Mumbai claim another win against Chennai?

Preview for Chennai Super Kings v Mumbai Indians

Chennai Super Kings will be hoping they can deal a blow to challengers Mumbai Indians in today’s massive IPL clash.

Indians won their last match against the Super Kings in early April, and will be looking to knock the Super Kings off their comfortable perch at the top of the table to draw within two points of the leaders.

Mumbai are on a two match winning run against Chennai, and will be looking to make it three wins on the spin. They’re evens to claim their seventh win of the season. League leaders Chennai will be looking to assert their dominance over the chasing pack, and they’re 4/5 favourites to win.

Can the Indians close the gap at the top to the Super Kings? Before the action gets underway at 3:30pm on BT Sport 3, our cricket trader Benjamin Steele has given us his tips…

Coral News: Super Kings show no sign of slowing up in their quest for a fourth title. If they overcome the Indians in their biggest test, can you see anyone other than Chennai winning the IPL?

Benjamin Steele: Dad’s Army just look bombproof at the moment, and it would be hard to go against them in any knockout game once the playoffs start.

Particularly if MS Dhoni maintains his fortune with the coin – he’s won eight tosses in a row going into this game.

Of course if Mumbai could win this game and go into the playoffs having rolled them over twice it might just give them the shot of confidence they need. But if you had Chennai on your side to win the tournament at the moment you wouldn’t be complaining much!

CN: What should we look out for in this match between the IPL’s two most successful sides?

BS: Chennai’s spin trio against Mumbai’s packed batting line-up. The pitch at Chennai has probably been the most consistently tricky this season, and Mumbai could need one of their power-packed middle-order players to play a more restrained innings to keep them in the contest.

CN: Quinton de Kock has scored an average of 49 over his last five games, including knocks of 65 and 81 against the Royals. Is he the key to the Indians chances?

BS: It’s good to see the South African back in good touch after a tricky time of it in last year’s tournament.

He’s pure class, but there’s plenty of batting to come if he suffers a rare failure.

CN: Mumbai won the first meeting between the pair this season by 37 runs. What do you think the Super Kings would have learned from that game and improved on?

BS: With two such experienced sides who have both been round the block plenty of times, I’m not too sure either team will have learnt too much they didn’t already know.

But given it was the Mumbai pacemen who did the damage to the Chennai chase, the fact that Chennai are back at their home fortress will make them favourites to reverse the earlier result.

CN: After his knock of 84 against RCB, has MS Dhoni shown that he’s one of the best middle order batsmen T20 cricket has ever seen?

BS: Certainly in chases. He nearly pulled off a miracle against Bangalore on Sunday when he came up one run short when needing 26 off the final over.

He seemingly gets the game to move to his whims, and his form this year seems as good as ever.

CN: Indians seemed to have the measure of the Super Kings bowlers in their first game. Will MS Dhoni look to switch up their bowling attack this time?

BS: As mentioned they will go back to the three spinners – Harbhajan Singh, Ravindra Jadeja and Imran Tahir – and they will be as hard to get away as always.

CN: In such a huge game, are there any markets that could look to tempt you?

BS: This might be one to sit back and enjoy, but Shane Watson got right back to form in Chennai’s last match with 96, and experienced high-quality players can often back up big scores in these tournaments, so I may be keeping an eye on some of his markets.

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