Defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) will take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 edition on March 26 (Saturday) at the Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai.
New leadership
Chennai Super Kings under the leadership of Ravindra Jadeja will miss some key players against KKR in the inaugural match as Deepak Chahar will not be available due to injury and their English all-rounder Moeen Ali will also be unable to take part in the first match due to his visa issues.
On the other hand, the Kolkata-based franchise will start their IPL 2022 campaign under the leadership of new skipper Shreyas Iyer. But KKR will miss their Australian pair of Aaron Finch and Pat Cummins. Notably, Finch was previously roped in as replacement for England batter Alex Hales.
Ahead of the mega auction for IPL 2022, CSK had retained four player and they are- former skipper MS Dhoni, English all-rounder Moeen Ali, Indian batter Ruturaj Gaikwad and skipper Ravindra Jadeja.
On the other hand, KKR had West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell, Indian spinner Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer and West Indies spinner Sunil Narine.
Records and numbers
Both the teams had last faced each other in the final of the IPL 2021 and CSK had won that match by 27 runs, so KKR skipper Iyer will surely want to forget the past and start the 15th edition of IPL on a winning note.
The two teams have faced each other 25 times and CSK managed to win 17 matches as the two-time IPL champions claimed victory in 8 matches.
KKR full squad for IPL 2022
Shreyas Iyer (captain), Andre Russell, Varun Chakravarthy, Venkatesh Iyer, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Nitish Rana, Shivam Mavi, Sheldon Jackson, Ajinkya Rahane, Rinku Singh, Anukul Roy, Rasikh Dar, Chamika Karunaratne, Baba Indrajith, Ashok Sharma, Pratham Singh, Abhijeet Tomar, Sam Billings, Alex Hales, Ramesh Kumar, Mohammed Nabi, Aman Khan, Umesh Yadav
Chennai Super Kings squad for IPL 2022
Ravindra Jadeja (captain), MS Dhoni, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Moeen Ali, Robin Uthappa, Ambati Rayudu, Devon Conway, Subhranshu Senapati, Hari Nishaanth, N Jagadeesan, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana, Simarjeet Singh, Adam Milne, Mukesh Choudhary, Dwayne Bravo, Shivam Dube, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Dwaine Pretorius, Mitchell Santner, Prashant Solanki
