CSK bowl, de Villiers returns, Willey to make IPL debut

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Chennai Super Kings chose to bowl v Royal Challengers Bangalore

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7:54

Who's the more difficult batsman to bowl to? Who's better in chases? Sanjay Manjrekar and Shaun Tait discuss all that and more

One team needed extra bowling resources, the other its talisman, and both shortcomings were addressed to give a marquee clash additional sheen. AB de Villiers recovered from viral fever to regain his spot in the Royal Challengers Bangalore XI while Chennai Super Kings handed out a debut to David Willey, the left-arm fast bowling allrounder from England. With his inclusion, MS Dhoni has seven specialist bowling options.

Both captains said they wanted to chase even though the pitch started out dry and is likely to get drier as the sun beats down. Some green grass was left on it to perhaps slow down the deterioration. In any case, that suggests they are more than confident the batsmen in their line-ups can cope in case conditions become difficult, but not the bowlers. And there are stats to back that kind of thinking. CSK and RCB have given away the most runs in the death overs this season.

Willey's addition could help in that regard. He is a specialist T20 player for England, having recently opted out of a first-class contract with Yorkshire, and is noted for his ability to swing the new ball. He also has incredible hitting ability and has a highest score of 118. The IPL audience may want to get used to him. Faf du Plessis was forced to the bench.

By contrast, a player that's been around for a while - Parthiv Patel - will also be in action, playing his first game for RCB this season with Quinton de Kock having left for home to attend a wedding.

Batsman Dhruv Shorey found a place in the CSK XI as well at the expense of legspinner Karn Sharma

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Ambati Rayudu, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 5 Dhruv Shorey, 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 David Willey, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Shardul Thakur

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), 2 Brendon McCullum 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Mandeep Singh, 6 Colin de Grandhomme, 7 M Ashwin, 8 Tim Southee, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Yuzvendra Chahal, 11 Mohammed Siraj

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KKR bowl first, Rinku comes in for injured Rana

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Toss: Kolkata Knight Riders chose to bowl v Chennai Super Kings

Sunil Narine frustrated RCB with a chancy innings BCCI

Kolkata Knight Riders captain Dinesh Karthik stuck with the chasing trend and chose to bowl first against Chennai Super Kings in Kolkata. KKR made one change to the side that beat RCB in the previous game, bringing back Rinku Singh for Nitish Rana, suffering from a bad back.

CSK captain MS Dhoni, while naming an unchanged team, also said he preferred to bowl first. "The only concern is that the outfield seems smaller," he said. "We need to work on death bowling and need to bowl to the field."

CSK top the points table with six wins from eight games, while KKR have split their eight games, sitting fourth on the table.

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Chris Lynn, 2 Sunil Narine, 3 Robin Uthappa, 4 Dinesh Karthik (capt & wk), 5 Shubman Gill, 6 Andre Russell, 7 Rinku Singh, 8 Piyush Chawla, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Shivam Mavi, 11 Mitchell Johnson

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Karn Sharma, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Shardul Thakur, 11 Lungi Ngidi

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Advised others to bowl more slower ones and knuckleballs - Sandeep

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How difficult is it for a team to stage a turnaround - defend two low totals in consecutive games after conceding 180-plus in two back-to-back matches before that? That, too, with a depleted pace contingent without spearhead Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Billy Stanlake? Ask Sandeep Sharma, and he'll decode Sunrisers Hyderabad's bowling might that humbled his former side Kings XI Punjab by 13 runs while defending 132.

"All the bowlers are playing their roles very well which is why we've been able to defend two low totals. Our bowling unit is going to get a lot of confidence from these two wins," Sandeep said after the match. "We had bowled very well in the last game too [against Mumbai Indians], and our bowling unit is performing together, which is very important."

Sandeep's role in that line-up, as he said, was to assess the pitch as soon as possible after opening the bowling and advise the rest of the bowlers. Varying the length between full and good length, Sandeep made generous use of his slower-ball variations, including the knuckleball, in his three-over opening spell that conceded only 11 runs. Even though Kings XI marched to 44 for 0 in the Powerplay, he tied both Chris Gayle and KL Rahul down with 10 dot balls and a solitary four off his first 18 deliveries.

"Since I bowl the first over with the new ball, I am able to read the pitch quickly. I try to convey that message to the other bowlers," Sandeep said of his role in the absence of Bhuvneshwar and Stanlake. "Today, the knuckleballs and slower ones were getting a lot of help from the pitch and were getting stuck. They were not easy to hit. I gave them that suggestion and you must have seen that Basil Thampi got Gayle with a slower ball. So I just try to convey this message to the other bowlers as soon as possible."

A 139kmh delivery on full length in Thampi's first over had been bludgeoned over long-on for six by Gayle. In the ninth over and his second, Thampi took the pace off and bowled one short which Gayle top-edged and Thampi sprinted to square leg to pouch a return catch.

"To bowl a slower one on that particular delivery wasn't really my idea but I had given him (Thampi) the suggestion that the slower ball is getting a lot of help from the pitch so you can bowl more of those than the seam-up deliveries."

Even though Kings XI's prolific opening pair registered their fourth fifty stand in as many innings, Sandeep counted the early dismissals of Gayle and Rahul as the crucial junctures in the game.

"There wasn't any one turning point because we were defending such a low total," he said. "It was important for our bowlers to play their roles properly. Like Rashid Khan got KL [Rahul] out and Gayle's wicket was very important. Their openers have been doing really well so it was important to take those two wickets and after that there were two back-to-back wickets in my over which were also very important. Collectively, we bowled well."

With Sunrisers now positioned second only to Chennai Super Kings on the points table, Sandeep attributed the team's resilience to captain Kane Williamson's cool-headed demeanour on the field. On April 24 too, Williamson led his team to a 31-run win against Mumbai, after they had been bowled out for only 118.

"Kane Williamson is a really good captain. He is really calm. These are pressure games but he's always calm on the ground," Sandeep said. "He always remains positive. Even though we didn't score much, he said, 'We will give our best, we won't look at the scoreboard. We will give it our best shot and then if we lose, it doesn't matter.' It obviously helps your team if your leader is so calm and gives you positive vibes.

"He had said that we're not going to focus on the situation of the match, we will just focus on our bowling. We'll keep trying to take wickets. That was the plan and it worked for us tonight."

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Rajasthan Royals bowl, D'Arcy Short and Shreyas Gopal return | Cricket

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Toss Rajasthan Royals chose to bowl v Delhi Daredevils

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05:55

Last chance for Glenn Maxwell?

Rajasthan Royals captain Ajinkya Rahane elected to bowl against Delhi Daredevils at Feroz Shah Kotla. Having won only two out of their eight matches so far, Daredevils need to win all their remaining six matches or at least five of them to make the playoffs.

They brought in left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem to replace legspinner Rahul Tewatia. Royals, on the other hand, made two changes. Allrounder Mahipal Lomror and legspinner Ish Sodhi were left out to accommodate Shreyas Gopal and D'Arcy Short respectively.

Delhi Daredevils: 1 Colin Munro, 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 4 Rishabh Pant (wk), 5 Glenn Maxwell, 6 Vijay Shankar, 7 Shahbaz Nadeem, 8 Liam Plunkett, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Trent Boult

Rajasthan Royals: 1 Ajinkya Rahane (capt), 2 D'Arcy Short, 3 Sanju Samson, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Jos Buttler (wk), 6 Rahul Tripathi, 7 K Gowtham, 8 Jofra Archer, 9 Dhawal Kulkarni, 10 Shreyas Gopal, 11 Jaydev Unadkat

Varun Shetty is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

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ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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Mohammad Hafeez cleared to bowl once more

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Pakistan will once more have the complete services of allrounder Mohammad Hafeez at their disposal, after his rejigged bowling action was cleared by the ICC.

Hafeez, 37, was reported for a suspect action during an ODI against Sri Lanka in October, with an assessment at Loughborough University finding his action illegal - the third time that had happened in his career.

After working on his action over the past few months, Hafeez was tested again at Loughborough University a fortnight ago, and the results today declared his bowling action to be legal once more. It will come as a major boost to Pakistan, who had relied heavily on Hafeez's all-round game in the months leading up to his action being found illegal, rising to the top of the T20I rankings, and winning the Champions Trophy in June last year.

Hafeez's bowling was crucial in allowing Pakistan to field attacking bowling line-ups with more wicket-taking options without compromising on their batting depth.

Hafeez had enlisted the services of spin bowling consultant Carl Crowe, who also worked with West Indies spinner Sunil Narine on his action. He had also helped Hafeez overturn a one-year ban the second time he was reported. Hafeez also worked with biomechanics specialist Dr Paul Herron in England in December. He failed an unofficial test at a laboratory at LUMS university in Lahore days before the start of the Pakistan Super League - albeit very narrowly. But he did not bowl during the PSL.

Hafeez's problems with his bowling action go back a long way. He was first reported over 13 years ago during an ODI tri-series in Australia in 2005. Regulations concerning illegal actions were different back then and he soon returned. In 2014, his action was reported during the Champions League T20, and then again following a Test match against New Zealand later that year. Having twice been found over the legal limit for elbow extension, Hafeez was banned from bowling for 12 months.

He returned to bowling after his ban and cleared a bowling test in 2016, before the issue arose again leading to his current suspension.

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