Match details

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) vs Gujarat Titans (GT)
Chennai, 1930 IST (1400 GMT)

Big picture: Gaikwad vs Gill

The other interesting subplot in this game is the Chennai boys vs Chennai Super Kings. Titans have as many as five Tamil Nadu players in their side - Sai Sudharsan, Sai Kishore, Vijay Shankar, Shahrukh Khan and Sandeep Warrier. Among the quintet, Sudharsan, Kishore and Vijay are set to slot into Titans' XI or XII (accounting for the Impact Player). Sudharsan, Kishore and Vijay all have been part of CSK or Junior Super Kings, their grassroots programme. And back in the day, Shahrukh used to be a ball boy at Chepauk for IPL matches. In contrast, CSK don't have a single local player in their main squad.

At his pre-match press conference, CSK coach Stephen Fleming was even asked if this would be a "home game" for Titans. "A few of the players will be at home in terms of conditions," Fleming responded. "But yeah, it's hard to say."

Team news: Pathirana links up with CSK

Toss and Impact Player strategy

Chennai Super Kings

Possible bat-first XI: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Ajinkya Rahane, 4 Daryl Mitchell, 5 Shivam Dube, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Sameer Rizvi, 8 MS Dhoni (wk), 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 Maheesh Theekshana, 11 Tushar Deshpande

Possible bowl-first XI: 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), 2 Rachin Ravindra, 3 Ajinkya Rahane, 4 Daryl Mitchell, 5 Ravindra Jadeja, 6 Sameer Rizvi, 7 MS Dhoni (wk), 8 Deepak Chahar, 9 Maheesh Theekshana, 10 Tushar Deshpande, 11 Mustafizur Rahman

Gujarat Titans

Possible bat-first XI: 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 3 Sai Sudharsan, 4 Azmatullah Omarzai, 5 Vijay Shankar, 6 David Miller, 7 Rahul Tewatia, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 R Sai Kishore, 11 Spencer Johnson

Possible bowl-first XI: 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 3 Azmatullah Omarzai, 4 Vijay Shankar, 5 David Miller, 6 Rahul Tewatia, 7 Rashid Khan, 8 Umesh Yadav, 9 R Sai Kishore, 10 Spencer Johnson, 11 Mohit Sharma

Stats that matter

Pitch and conditions

The Chepauk pitch that was used on Friday was an atypical one, with not much turn on offer for the spinners. Instead, the ball slid on to the bat nicely, especially in the early exchanges. Believe it or not, CSK's spinners didn't take a single wicket in the season-opener. It was only the second instance of CSK's spinners going wicketless at Chepauk since May 2015.

"If you've noticed my comments over the last couple of seasons, we've been guessing a little bit about the wicket as well," Fleming said. "But it looks pretty good [today]."