Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders win their respective first encounter against Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
In the fifth match of the 11th season of Indian Premier League (IPL 2018), when M S Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings (CSK) play at their home ground of Chepauk in Chennai to take on Dinesh Karthik’s Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), they will do so with some amount of confidence – especially after having beaten defending champions Mumbai Indians on their own turf by 1 wicket in a thrilling contest on Saturday.
However, they will also try to look at and correct their flaws in the opening game of the tournament which necessitated some last-minute heroics by Dwayne Bravo to seal the match for them in a nail-biter finish. Besides, there is one setback that CSK have suffered due to the injury sustained by Kedar Jadhav – the all-rounder has been ruled out of the rest of IPL 2018 due to a hamstring injury.
For their part, KKR also won their opening match on Sunday against Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bengal at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, by 4 wickets on Sunday.
Today’s CSK vs KKR match – a homecoming like no other as the 'Men in Yellow' play at M A Chidambaram Stadium for the first time since May 2015 – promises a treat to the legion of CSK fans. Ahead of their favourite team’s match, many loyal supporters turned up in huge numbers even to watch them train.
Meanwhile, it is pertinent to note that the CSK vs KKR match is being played in the shadow of some off-field issues and threats of disruption. Some political groups have been opposing IPL matches being played in Chennai against the backdrop of the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka Cauvery water sharing dispute. They are demanding that a Cauvery Management Board should be set up immediately and protesting the Narendra Modi-led central government’s failure to do so. They have threatened to disrupt any IPL proceedings.
With several fringe elements threatening to protest the IPL 2018 matches in Chennai over the Cauvery issue, security arrangements have been beefed up to prevent any untoward incident, according to the police. CSK CEO K S Viswanathan, however, said the team's home matches would go on according to schedule. The city police had been informed about the schedule and they would handle the situation accordingly, he added.
A few day's earlier, superstar of Tamil films-turned-politician Rajinikanth had urged CSK players to wear black badges while playing their match against KKR to protest the Centre's apathy to the Cauvery issue. (more)
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