Chennai Take on Mumbai in 1st Playoff

New Delhi: It will be a 'Battle of Equals' when mighty Chennai Super Kings meet the formidable Mumbai Indians in the first playoff match of the Pepsi Indian Premier League on Tuesday.

On paper, there is very little to choose between the two teams, who have both won 11 out of their 16 matches and have a number of match-winners who can turn the tables on a given day.

Mumbai Indians under stewardship of Rohit Sharma has been a force to reckon with having won all their eight matches at home, while CSK's season has been a mix and match but they have successfully finished off a number of close encounters, which has been their hallmark over the years.

MI beat CSK in both matches of this season. So Mumbai Indians might just have a psychological advantage having beaten the 'Men in Yellow' in both home and away games.

With both teams relying on their batsmen to do the trick, one can brace up for 'some battles' within the main contest.

It can be a Sachin Tendulkar versus Ravichandran Ashwin, Mahendra Singh Dhoni versus Harbhajan Singh, Kieron Pollard against Mohit Sharma or Mike Hussey versus Pragyan Ojha affair.

Tendulkar is likely to make a comeback at the top of the order and the senior batsman would certainly want to play an innings of impact.

In all, a cracker of a contest can be expected on Tuesday.

Teams from:

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni (Captain & wk), Akila Dananjaya, Albie Morkel, Srikkanta Anirutha, Ankit Rajpoot, Baba Aparajith, Ben Hilfenhaus, Ben Laughlin, Chris Morris, Dirk Nannes, Dwayne Bravo, Francois du Plessis, Imtiyaz Ahmed, Jason Holder, Michael Hussey, Mohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, Nuwan Kulasekara, R Karthikeyan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ronit More, Shadab Jakati, S Badrinath, Suresh Raina, Vijay Shankar and Wridhiman Saha (wk).

Mumbai Indians: Ricky Ponting (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Sachin Tendulkar, Abu Nechim, Akshar Patel, Aditya Tare (wk), Aiden Blizzard, Ambati Rayudu, Amitoze Singh, Dhawal Kulkarni, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Dwayne Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Harbhajan Singh, Jacob Oram, Jalaj Saxena, James Franklin, Kieron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Mitchell Johnson, Munaf Patel, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Phil Hughes, Pawan Suyal, Pragyan Ojha, Rishi Dhawan, Suryakumar Yadav, Sushant Marathe and Yuzvendra Singh Chahal.

Match facts
Tuesday May 21, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 20:00 local (1430 GMT)