Chennai Super Kings: Gamechangers: Cricketnext

New Delhi: The Champions from India carry an ammunition store with them in terms of batting; at least Mathew Hayden does, in the form of his mongoose. But even if he fails to set the mongoose loose, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have the likes of Michael Hussey, Suresh Raina and skipper MS Dhoni to follow, who can deposit leather into the orbit.

Though Hayden has bid adieu to international cricket, he continues to pulverize bowlers in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and makes big-hitting look like child’s play. The team would bank on him to continue that and trigger explosions at the top of the order in the Airtel Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa as well. And if he does exactly that, intimidation is going to be a very small word to describe bowlers' emotional state.

CSK are lucky in the sense that they have match-winners all along their batting card. So if one fails, invariably one of the others steps up and does the job. That bracket includes Hussey, Raina and Dhoni, apart from Hayden. Any team that has four such power generators in the top six doesn't have to worry about power failures en route to setting and overhauling big totals.

Mr. Cricket – Michael Hussey – has taken Australia out of the woods on a number of occasions and that would give Dhoni confidence to let himself and others play their natural game, with Hussey acting as the rescuer or finisher for the team.

Suresh Raina's rise to the top has been one of the best international success stories of recent times. The southpaw would love to build on his reputation that grew in Sri Lanka when he scored a hundred on Test debut.

Indian skipper MS Dhoni's cricketing sense needs no introduction. His has been a meteoric rise in international cricket ever since his locks invited the fancy of former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. From playing sensible innings to macerating the opponents, the India and CSK skipper has mastered the art of playing as the situation demands.

In fact, Hussey, Raina and Dhoni all are masters at gauging the situation and can tickle their brains to figure out what's best in the team's interest and play accordingly. That's where Chennai have an upper hand in the Champions League.

While the batting seems to be well taken care of, it's the CSK bowling that looks to be on the thinner side. The two obvious choices on that front would be the Aussie Douglas Bollinger and spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan.

CSK would expect Bollinger to incise opponents at the top and bottom of the innings and Murali to take over from him in the middle overs, where he can first stifle the batsmen for runs and then chicken them out. Other than these two, it's difficult to find anybody leading the bowling charts but then you never know, it's Twenty20.

(Watch CNN-IBN live on your iPad. IBN7 and IBN Lokmat too. Download the IBNLive for iPad app. It's free. Click here to download now)

#Mathew Hayden, #Michael Hussey, #Suresh Raina, #MS Dhoni, #Doug Bollinger, #Muttiah Muralitharan #CSK, #Chennai Super Kings