Mumbai Gear up to Take on Chennai

Chennai: Although India's annual T20 extravaganza is a relatively young tournament, the clash between two-time champions Chennai and the cash-rich Mumbai is already showing signs of developing into the competition's El Clasico. Such is the intensity when the two meet.

Chennai, who have entered the finals on four occasions, are inarguably the team to beat since they boats the tournament's best victory percentage. But Mumbai with Sachin Tendulkar as the marquee player, interestingly, are the only team to hold the better of them head to head at 7-5.

While Chennai, traditionally slow starters, will look to kickstart the tourney on a winning note, Mumbai will be keen to get their campaign back on track following their cliffhanger defeat to Bangalore away on Thursday.

Chennai were eventually denied a record hat-trick of titles, ambushed by Kolkata at Chepauk, and Dhoni, who appears to have regain his touch following the record 4-0 triumph over Australia in the recent Test series at home, will be looking to re-establish Chennai's supremacy in the premier global competition.

Interestingly, Chennai bolstered their pace department, which Dhoni accepted was the side's Achilles heel on certain occasions, during this year's players' auction, with Australian Dirk Nannes one of the top signings. Chennai will be without their two Sri Lankan players (Nuwan Kulasekara and new signee Akila Danajaya) due to the governing council barring Sri Lankan players from playing in Chennai owing to the political situation in Tamil Nadu.

Sri Lankan quick Lasith Malinga also missed the season-opener with a sore back, a game that Mumbai allowed to slip through their grasp in the final over.

Teams from

Chennai Super Kings MS Dhoni (captain & wk), S Anirudha, B Aparajith, R Ashwin, S Badrinath, DJ Bravo, A Dananjaya, F du Plessis, BW Hilfenhaus, JO Holder, MEK Hussey, Imtiaz Ahmed, RA Jadeja, SB Jakati, R Karthikeyan, KMDN Kulasekara, B Laughlin, RG More, JA Morkel, CH Morris, DP Nannes, SK Raina, AS Rajpoot, WP Saha (wk), V Shankar, MM Sharma, M Vijay

Mumbai Indians RT Ponting (captain), AN Ahmed, Amitoze Singh, AC Blizzard, JJ Bumrah, YS Chahal, NM Coulter-Nile, R Dhawan, JEC Franklin, Harbhajan Singh, PJ Hughes, MG Johnson, KD Karthik (wk), JJ Khan, DS Kulkarni, SL Malinga, SH Marathe, GJ Maxwell, PP Ojha, JDP Oram, AR Patel, MM Patel, KA Pollard, AT Rayudu, Jalaj S Saxena, RG Sharma, DR Smith, P Suyal, AP Tare (wk), SR Tendulkar, SA Yadav

Head 2 Head
Mumbai lead the head-to-head with seven wins against Super Kings, out of 13 games.

Match facts
Saturday April 6, 2013 (day/night)
Start time 2000 local (1430 GMT)