IPL 2025: Confident Super Kings will turn to spin again at fortress Chepauk

CHENNAI: “I’ve to start winning some of them for it to be called a rivalry.” This was the brutally honest admission of an exasperated and an equally disconsolate Andy Roddick after losing to Roger Federer for the second successive time, and in the first of three finals the duo would contest, at Wimbledon in 2004.

Their head-to-head record after yet another drubbing that Roddick endured in that match where Federer coasted to his second Championship, and a third Grand Slam title, with a booming ace stood at a set score equivalent of 6-1 in the Swiss maestro’s favour.

Roddick’s pithy and remarkably candid observation would hold gallons of water in the context of the ‘non-existent’ rivalry between Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL.

In fact, the words ‘fierce rivals’, which when used without the slightest trace of affectation, instantly succeed in holding the rapt attention of even a sporting philistine, have been greatly trivialised by talking this match up since the league’s inception, much like an unscrupulous politician reeling off a slew of poll promises and we all know what the upshot of that would be, obviating the need to go into greater dissection.

Where the legendary Steve Waugh would enter the field with his trademark red handkerchief firmly in his corner, with the pocket doubling up as a corner here, it seems the team from Bengaluru would equip itself with a bunch of towels ready to throw them in when they look the team in Yellow in its eye.

This despite the fact that the last time these two teams clashed, it was RCB that came up trumps. Didn’t we grow up hearing the age-old adage, “One swallow doesn’t make a summer?” In the current context, it is literally one swallow as RCB has just a solitary win from nine attempts at Chepauk, with even that lone victory coming in the inaugural season of 2008.

On the eve of the latest instalment happening here on Friday, the Bengaluru outfit was, like they always are on match-day eve regardless of whether the venue is in Chennai or at their own backyard, brimming with optimism, quietly, nay, supremely confident of getting the result they desire.

This time around, both teams head into the match having played a game apiece and notching up convincing wins. The biggest takeaway for RCB from its victory over defending champion, Kolkata Knight Riders, would be the 3/29 performance of left-arm spinner Krunal Pandya.

Going by what one saw in the match between CSK and Mumbai Indians, spin will once again take centre stage here as Noor Ahmad’s 4/18 and MI’s Vignesh Puthur’s 3/32 bear it out.

Barring last year, when has spin ever not been the sole protagonist at Chepauk and with R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja augmenting the spin stocks, CSK would be rubbing its hands with glee, in anticipation of running rings around the RCB batters.

Until RCB mends its losing ways, let’s not sacrifice the ‘R’ word on the altar of attracting a few more eyeballs or garnering higher TRPs.