The toss didn’t go his way but still MS Dhoni got what he wanted on his return as Chennai Super Kings captain. His team was asked to bat first. CSK, who have yet to win a game since their first one of the season, will be playing on the same pitch that match took place. They made two changes, along expected lines. Rahul Tripathi came in for Ruturaj Gaikwad, who is out of the season due to an elbow injury and Anshul Kamboj came in for Mukesh Choudhary (6-0-71-1).

Kolkata Knight Riders have a deep batting line-up and Ajinkya Rahane pointed to it as a major reason for why he wanted to chase. He also confirmed the return of Moeen Ali into the XI, a straightforward pick considering his offspin is a good match-up against a side filled with left-hand batters. Also, Moeen and Rahane too have experience playing on this ground having been part of a title-winning campaign with CSK in 2023.

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Devon Conway, 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Rahul Tripathi, 4 Shivam Dube, 5 Vijay Shankar, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 MS Dhoni (capt, wk), 8 R Ashwin, 9 Noor Ahmad, 10 Anshul Kamboj, 11 Khaleel Ahmed

Impact Player options: Matheesha Pathirana, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shaik Rasheed, Jamie Overton, Deepak Hooda

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 4 Venkatesh Iyer, 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Ramandeep Singh, 8 Moeen Ali, 9 Harshit Rana, 10 Vaibhav Arora, 11 Varun Chakravarthy

Impact Player options: Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Manish Pandey, Anukul Roy, Rovman Powell, Luvnith Sisodia