Brian Lara said Chennai Super Kings are high on confidence and would certainly be looking to finish in the top 2 spots of the points table at the end of the league phase. CSK hammered Sunrisers Hyderabad by 7 wickets on Wednesday to pick up their 5th straight win of the season.
Former West Indies captain and legendary batsman, Brain Lara talked about Chennai Super Kings’ chance of finishing at the top 2 spots at the end of the league stages, further saying MS Dhoni’s men is the team to beat at the moment in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021.
Brian Lara: Chennai Super Kings Is The Team To Beat At The Moment
Brain Lara highlighted that Chennai Super Kings have a strong batting line-up to make good use of good batting conditions while a handy bowling unit can take advantage of bowler-friendly conditions in IPL 2021.
Notably, CSK completed their 5th straight win of the season to return to the top of the IPL 2021 points table on Wednesday. They gunned down a 172-run target against Sunrisers Hyderabad with ease in their first match of the season at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
While heaping praise on Faf du Plessis and Ruturaj Gaikwad for their ability to consistently provide solid foundations for the rest of the batting order, Brian Lara said CSK’s top 3 are looking settled and can dominate opposition bowling attacks. The opening duo stitched a 129-run opening stand for CSK that helped them chase 172 with ease against SRH on Wednesday.
“Yeah, beautiful. It’s unbelievable that when they started, they looked out of sorts. Especially Ruturaj, the way he started, his foot wasn’t moving properly. But MS Dhoni stuck with him, he stuck with the opening partnership which is great. And they are laying the foundation now. They did not look disturbed at all at any point of time today (Wednesday),” Brian Lara said.
“Their top 3 are important. You can’t leave out Moeen Ali as well. If they bat well, they look like they can chase any kind of target on good batting tracks. And if their bowlers are doing well on good bowling tracks, then they still have got a batting unit to survive it.”
“I think they are the team to beat at the moment. They don’t have big somebody like an Andre Russell who is going to go out there and score you a 50 in 15 balls but they have got a team which is most important,” he added.
Brian Lara, speaking to Star Sports after CSK’s 7-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in Match 23 of IPL 2021 on Wednesday, said the former champions are high on confidence and are playing a “different level” of cricket. For CSK, excellent performers are Orange Cap holder Faf Du Plessis( 270 runs), Ruturaj Gaikwad (192 runs), Moeen Ali (148 runs, 4 wickets), Deepak Chahar (8 wickets), Lungi Ngidi (5 wickets), and Ravindra Jadeja (109 runs, 5 wickets).
Brian Lara: It Seems MS Dhoni Can Bat Anywhere And CSK Has Players Like Dwayne Bravo And Imran Tahir As Back-ups
Meanwhile, Brian Lara highlighted the focus has shifted from MS Dhoni’s batting position from the start of the season to CSK’s envious bench strength.
The former West Indies batsman said CSK would look to seal a play-offs berth and preferably finish in the top 2 spots to give themselves the cushion of another opportunity in the last-4 playoff stages after missing the playoff berth for the first time in last season at UAE as the team finished 7th.
“A lot of concentration and talks had been around MS Dhoni, is he going to come up the order and all that. It seems he can bat anywhere. His leadership is most important,” Brian Lara said.
“They have players like Bravo as back-up, Tahir as back-up. They have got players waiting in the reserves. When they do qualify, I think you would see more players getting opportunities. Of course, MS Dhoni would want to finish 1-2 because that means if they win the semi-final (qualifier 1), they go straight into the final.”
“Their confidence is high, they are playing a different type of cricket. I saw it at the end of 2020, they won their last 3 games. They played relaxed cricket. Now you have to count it like 7 out of 8 or 8 out of 9 since last IPL.”
Imran Tahir played a solitary match so far in IPL 2021 where the spinner picked 2 scalps conceding only 16 runs when Moeen Ali was injured. His economy of 4 is the best so far in IPL 2021.
On the other hand, Dwayne Bravo has played 4 IPL games scoring 20 runs and picking 3 wickets. CSK also has other players like Mitchell Santner, Robin Uthappa, Jason Behrendorff, Cheteshwar Pujara, and Krishnappa Gowtham who are yet to play a game.