MS Dhoni misses the Mumbai Indians game due to fever

Chennai Super Kings are into another game without their skipper MS Dhoni. They are playing arch-rivals Mumbai Indians at home, the MA Chidambaram Stadium and want to win this contest to ensure a playoffs qualification. He didn’t train with the team earlier and in fact, hasn’t even travelled to the stadium. In his absence, Suresh Raina will lead the team in the El Clasico.

This is the second game that Dhoni has been forced to miss this season. Earlier, it was back spasm that kept him out of action in the away contest against Sunrisers Hyderabad. CSK had lost that match and clearly missed their skipper. It is Ambati Rayudu who will be keeping wickets in place of Dhoni for this game.

In fact, CSK take the field today without Ravindra Jadeja who is also unavailable for the match as he also is unwell. Both the heavyweights seem to have caught a viral fever. At the toss, Raina confirmed their illness and also mentioned that opener Faf du Plessis will miss this match as well. So the CSK team that usually likes to go unchanged has made three changes in the playing XI. The coin flipped in Raina’s favour and he elected to bowl first.

Both teams make multiple changes

Suresh Raina said: “We will bowl first, wicket still looks the same. I think dew will be the factor. MS and Jaddu are not well, they have fever and they will miss today’s game. We have three changes: MS, Jaddu and one more player is not playing (Faf). Dhruv Shorey, Murali Vijay and Santner comes in.”

Mumbai also made a couple of changes in their team combination. Rohit Sharma said: “I would have chased too as dew comes in the second half which makes batting easier. The first half of the tournament was bit up and down. But now we know exactly what we need to know as a team. It is always challenging to play cricket here. We have made two changes in our team.”

Playing XI

Chennai Super Kings: Shane Watson, Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina (C), Ambati Rayudu (wk), Dhruv Shorey, Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir

Mumbai Indians: Quinton de Kock (C), Evin Lewis, Rohit Sharma (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Anukul Roy, Rahul Chahar, Lasith Malinga, Jasprit Bumrah

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