Can MS Dhoni’s CSK stop a rampaging Shubman Gill?

The 16^th edition of the Indian Premier League has got the final it deserves, for the two teams that finished first and second on the points table will now meet in Sunday’s final. And that is what you want to see in a sporting competition, right? The final of any tournament should be between the two best teams, and thus Chennai Super Kings versus Gujarat Titans has a nice ring to it.

The other two teams in the IPL 2023 playoffs didn’t look anywhere near as convincing. Lucknow Super Giants played some scrappy cricket to get into the final four after a much better start, but without KL Rahul they lacked a major batsman and the truth is that their Indian contingent was not up to the mark. Mumbai Indians overturned a poor start to gain some momentum, despite a very weak bowling attack, but they made it to the playoffs because GT defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore. Yes, MI had a very good batting order – the best in the playoffs, many will say – but after smashing LSG by 81 runs after Rohit Sharma made the right decision at the toss in Chennai, the wheels fell off the bus in Ahmedabad when the captain erred grossly in putting GT into bat, with Shubman Gill in tremendous form.

Why would you opt to chase in a must-win match when your bowling is problematic, and that too on the best batting track outside of Mumbai with the tournament’s best opener in the opposition’s side? Licking his lips, Gill bashed his way to a third century this IPL season – and for the second time in three innings, he eliminated a team – and GT brushed aside MI to meet CSK in the final, also in Ahmedabad.

When these two teams met in Qualifier 1, MS Dhoni’s smart cricketing brain and CSK’s spinners downed GT comfortably. But that was a very different pitch, and given that the final is in GT’s home ground we can expect something similar to Friday’s Qualifier 2. So, win the toss and bat.

As stunning as Gill has been in stacking up 851 runs at 60.78 and a strike-rate of 156.43, the fact is that GT are heavily dependent on him. Wriddhiman Saha has two innings of note out of 16, David Miller has three single-digit scores in a row and the decision to send Sai Sudarshan, whose strike-rate was 125 before Qualifier 2, at No 3 in Friday’s must-win match could have backfired. Make note of the fact that Sudarshan was retired on 43 off 31 balls and it took Hardik Pandya’s 13-ball 28* to get GT to 233/2. Of course, given how good the bowling was and how poor MI’s batting, barring Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav, even 200 would have been enough to win Qualifier 2.

But you get the sense that if CSK can get Gill, they will have taken a massive step forward to winning the final. Expect Dhoni to have a plan in mind.

The team that reached the final first also boasts some fine batsmen in form. Devon Conway (625 runs) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (564) have put together some terrific opening stands, and in the middle order Shivam Dube (386) has hit spinners into the stands for fun. If these three get going on a batting-friendly surface and Ajinkya Rahane also contributes, CSK will pack a punch.

Plus, they have better bowlers than MI or LSG. Tushar Deshpande’s 21 wickets have been a major lift and in Matheesha Pathirana this team has the best death-overs bowler alongside GT’s ace, Mohit Sharma. Ravindra Jadeja has claimed 19 wickets, so there is ample talent to test GT’s batting.

Tactically, Dhoni is streets ahead of Pandya but the momentum is with GT and Gill, who will be backed by a vibrant home fan base at the world’s biggest cricket stadium. This is a contest between a team that has punched above its weight to get this far, marshalled by the only captain capable of taking this unit and shaping match-winners from it. With this being Dhoni’s last IPL as a player, in all probability, you can expect to see a lot of yellow jerseys and placards in the stands. One got the feeling at the start of the IPL that CSK were playing hard to send Dhoni into retirement with a fifth title. Can they do it one more time, against the home team boasting the best batsmen of the tournament?