IPL 2019: Match 1, Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore – Statistical Preview

The defending champions Chennai Super Kings will take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening game of the 12th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). CSK will kick start their campaign at their home ground in Chennai where they have an impeccable record, especially against the RCB. The Super Kings are led by the former Indian captain MS Dhoni and will be up against the team led by the current all-format skipper Virat Kohli.

Key stats and numbers ahead of the opening game of the 12th edition of the IPL:

6 – Chennai Super Kings won each of their previous six IPL matches against Royal Challengers Bangalore. The last win for RCB over CSK came during the 2014 season in Ranchi.

The CSK team leads the head to head record against the RCB by 14-7 from 22 IPL matches as one game ended without a result.

20 – Harbhajan Singh has 20 wickets in the IPL against RCB from 21 matches. Only Ashish Nehra (23) picked up more wickets in the IPL against RCB than Harbhajan.

175 – The average first innings total in the previous four night Twenty20 games in Chepauk is 175. The chasing sides won three of those four matches and lost in one.

300 – The opening game of the IPL will be Shane Watson’s 300th Twenty20 match. The Queenslander will be the first Australian to feature in 300 T20s.

710 – MS Dhoni has 710 runs from 24 IPL innings against the Royal Challengers at an average of 37.36 with help of three fifties. Dhoni is the only player with 650+ runs against RCB in the IPL thus far.

732 – Virat Kohli scored 732 runs against the Chennai franchise from 21 innings at an average of 40.67 with six fifties. Rohit Sharma (606) is the only other player to aggregate over 600 IPL runs against CSK.

2008 – The last and only instance of RCB defeating the Super Kings in Chennai in the IPL was during the inaugural 2008 season. CSK won all the six IPL games they played against the Royal Challengers in Chennai since then.

3,953 – AB de Villiers needs 47 more runs to become the 2nd overseas player to score 4000 IPL runs after David Warner.

4,986 – Suresh Raina has scored 4986 runs in the Twenty20 format for the Super Kings. Virat Kohli (5372 for RCB) is the only player with 5000+ runs for a single team in Twenty20 cricket thus far.

5,000 – Suresh Raina (4985) and Virat Kohli (4948) will be clashing in the IPL 2019 opener to become the first player to reach 5000 runs in the IPL. The toss result could well decide who among the two would achieve the milestone.

7,905 – Virat Kohli needs 95 more runs to complete 8000 runs in Twenty20 cricket. Only Suresh Raina (8009) has 8000+ T20 runs among Indian players.

Here is RCB’s squad for IPL 2019

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