Time: October 29, 7:30 PM IST
Venue: Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai
Pitch report
In the last 10 innings at Dubai, a score above 150 runs has been scored six times. Although the pitch has been good for batting, the bowlers have had their share of success as well.
Power players
Sam Curran has done everything his team has asked of him. He has opened the innings with both bat and ball, finished the games, and bowled at the death. Talk about utilising someone’s skills to the core! He has taken the bulk of the wickets for Chennai and scored two fifties. With his teammates being unable to put up a consistent show, his percentage selection in fantasy cricket will be on the other higher side in the remainder of the tournament.
Shubman Gill’s strike rate of 114 may not be impressive in this brand of the game, but that’s been the role given to him. To put the point into perspective, it has also helped the fantasy players. No matter whether Kolkata win or lose, you’ll see Gill among runs and that’s all that matters in fantasy games. With 378 runs, he is the highest run-scorer for his team.
Varun Chakraborty has been so impressive that the second-highest wicket-taker in the team has 6 wickets fewer than him. In the only game he has played at Dubai, he finished with figures of 2 for 25.
After a spectacular start to the season, Faf du Plessis’ journey has been in a downward spiral. He has been getting out to ordinary deliveries. Fortunately for him and if there’s anything that should give him confidence, his 40% of the runs have come at the very venue.
Smart picks
Ruturaj Gaikwad’s 65* against Bangalore was just a glimpse of what he can do. He is not a massive six-hitter, but he can still bat at a demanding strike rate with the variety of shots he has in his armoury.
Eoin Morgan has four scores in excess of 30 runs in the last five innings. If he bats higher up, he might as well fetch more runs for his team.
Lockie Ferguson has taken 6 wickets in 4 matches and has scores of 19* and 24*.
Sunil Narine has not been effective ever since he changed his bowling style, and he is an all-or-nothing player with the bat. He has taken 5 wickets in 8 games and has the highest score of 64.
Fantasy tips
Go through the Player Fantasy Points and Selection Percentage before finalising your fantasy teams. For example, if a cricketer’s selection percentage is above 80%, you may have to think twice before leaving him out.
Also, the best fantasy tip to further narrow down your choices is to check the captain and vice-captain selection percentage.
Probable XIs
Chennai: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Narayan Jagadeesan, Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Imran Tahir, Monu Kumar
Kolkata: Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Eoin Morgan, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakravarthy, Prasidh Krishna