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While Dhoni, approaching his 42nd birthday, may be looking for a memorable send-off, Gill, with his elegant batting style, is determined to prevent the Chennai Super Kings from securing their fifth IPL title.
The contrast in their cricketing journeys is intriguing. Around 19 years ago, a young Dhoni was taking his first steps in the Indian national team, while four-year-old Gill honed his skills on a vast farmland in the village of Fazilka, near the Pakistani border. Even at that young age, Gill was already showing his passion for the sport, using a bat specially designed by his beloved grandfather.
As the final showdown takes place at the Narendra Modi Stadium, with its massive 132,000 capacity, Dhoni will don his prized Canary yellow jersey for the last time, aiming to thwart the rise of Gill, who is seen as the future megastar. of indian cricket. It will be Dhoni’s final task in his illustrious career, and he will be determined to achieve a ‘High Five’ by winning the IPL title for Chennai Super Kings.
The clash between these two players, representing their respective teams, adds an extra layer of excitement to the IPL final. Fans can’t wait to witness the battle between the seasoned master, Dhoni, and the young prodigy, Gill, as they vie for supremacy on the big stage.
Three hundred 851 runs don’t happen in every season, but in a batting belt at Motera, what will Dhoni’s strategy be to stop the ‘Mohali Marauder’?
Will it be Deepak Chahar’s swing or Ravindra Jadeja’s wicket-to-wicket bowling? Or will it be Moeen Ali, who could be the ‘Joker in the Pack’ with her attractive deliveries flown off the stump that he could snap back sharply? Can Matheesha Pathirana throw some incisor finger crushers?
A technically near-perfect batsman against a captain known for thinking outside the box. It can’t get more exciting than this.
His die-hard fans can expect him to return next year, but even Dhoni, who has played all season with a badly injured left knee, could find it extremely difficult to keep up with the demands of the shorter format.
So for all the fans of ‘Thala’ (big brother in Tamil), it’s all about relishing the Dhoni moments until it lasts. In this CSK setup, he could afford to bat at No. 8 in most games, but reached the final with a bowling line-up that lost Deepak Chahar for most of the first half and had to turn a spendthrift Tushar Deshpande into a reliable wicket-taker.
Turning an inconsistent Shivam Dube into a six-hit thug or overseeing the return of T20 bowler Ravindra Jadeja, the legend of Dhoni will never cease to exist. He will only grow and his captaincy stories will also be polished with layers of myth decades down the line.
They say familiarity breeds contempt, but contempt would be the last word on Dhoni and CSK’s minds when they take on Hardik Padya’s Titans.
The CSK logo features a “Roaring Lion”, but they would take the Land of Gir Forest team lightly at their peril.
After 73 games, the two most consistent teams meet in the summit clash.
No team has emulated the structural and team-building ethos of the Chennai Super Kings as thoroughly as Gujarat Titans, another team, where cricket decisions are based on sound logic, consistency and no interference from overbearing owners.
There is a captain in Pandya who believes that there is only one way to lead the team. He is called ‘The Mahi Way’.
Batsmen win games but bowlers win tournaments is an old saying and couldn’t be more apt when one is tracking the performance of the Titans.
Mohammed Shami (28 wickets), Rashid Khan (27 wickets) and Mohit Sharma (24 wickets) have executed plans more often than not and so it hasn’t really affected the Titans that second-highest run-scorer after Gill’s 851 runs is the pattern Hardik Pandya (325), which is over 500 runs away.
A quintessential goaltender, Wriddhiman Saha would consider himself lucky, that the team’s management never thought to replace him despite a 127 strike rate when opening batting and just scoring over fifty on 16 hits.
And here, Dhoni would try to seize the opportunity. If they can catch Gill early, none of the other batsmen have shown the means to fight hard and the bowlers would need a decent total on board.
Under Dhoni, if the likes of Ajinkya Rahane (299 runs in 13 matches, two fifties) and Shivam Dube have found their rhythm this season, young bowlers like Sri Lanka’s Matheesha Pathirana (17 wickets in 15 matches) and the top India’s Tushar Deshpande (21 wickets in 15 matches) have also been able to find their feet at the IPL stage.
In CSK’s batting line-up, Devon Conway (625 runs in 15 games, six fifties) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (564 runs in 15 games, four fifties) have time and again given CSK decisive starts at the top.
Heavy hitter Dube (386 runs in 15 matches, three fifty) is the second-highest six hitter for CSK in this IPL with 33 sixes, along with Gill on the list.
There are no clear favorites and it could be one of the best finals in IPL history.
Teams of):
Gujarat Titans: Hardik Pandya (c), Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Sai Sudharsan, Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade, Rashid Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Pradeep Sangwan, Darshan Nalkande, Jayant Yadav , R. Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad, Dasun Shanaka, Odean Smith, KS Bharat, Shivam Mavi, Urvil Patel, Joshua Little, and Mohit Sharma
Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (c&wk), Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Moeen Ali, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Sisanda Magala, Shivam Dube, Dwaine Pretorius, Ajay Mandal, Nishant Sindhu, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Mitchell Santner, Subhranshu Senapati, Simarjeet Singh, Matheesha Pathirana, Mahesh Theekshana, Bhagath Verma, Prashant Solanki, Shaikh Rasheed, Tushar Deshpande
(With PTI inputs)
