Team Deano predicts a MI victory in the world’s toughest T20 final

Prior to the much-awaited VIVO IPL 2019 grand finale between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians, the second edition of the #SelectDugoutDebate was closely contested today with predictions on ‘Who will win world’s toughest T20 finals?’ from Star Sports Select Experts. The presidential style debate saw Dean Jones, Anil Kumble and Brett Lee teaming up against Scott Styris who was supported by Brendon McCullum and Mike Hesson to share their thoughts on which team is better placed to win the VIVO IPL 2019.

Team Deano and Team Scotty faced off against each other in a banter that highlighted key stats leading up to the game, key player battles to watch out for and more importantly who has a greater chance to create history by becoming VIVO IPL Champions for a record fourth time?

Whilst Team Deano were backing Mumbai Indians to win, Team Scotty sportingly countered every point put across by Prof. Deano and team to tell fans why they believe CSK will defend their title.  

Here’s what the experts had to say.

Mike Hesson who will be on Star Sports Select Dugout for the Grand Finale of VIVO IPL 2019 believes CSK’s game in the powerplay holds the key to their success, “I want to bring some context to the statistics we are going to talk about, powerplays are all about match-ups, Quinton De Kock for instance every time an off spinner comes on and the ball swings away from the bat, his strike rate goes down to 82 and with Harbhajan in the line-up I expect MS Dhoni to throw ball straight at him. Dot balls in the power plays generate a lot of wicket taking opportunities and that’s exactly why Deepak Chahar will be vital. Chahar has bowled the most number of dot balls in the power play this season and if he manages to build the pressure on Rohit Sharma early-on in the innings CSK will have a huge upper hand in the game.”

However, Prof. Dean Jones had a different view, “No doubt Deepak Chahar has been brilliant this season with his high dot ball percentages and wicket taking abilities in the power plays but CSK have lost all the three power play battles this season against Mumbai Indians. CSK can talk about Chahar, they can talk about Harbhajan Singh but the fact remains that Mumbai Indians have dominated in the power plays when these two teams have met.” 

While Dean Jones might have stressed on the power plays, his counter-part Scott Styris who has previously won the VIVO IPL title with CSK stressed on the impact Mahendra Singh Dhoni can have towards the death overs, “We all know how effective MS Dhoni is when he is batting in the death overs. He has scored 215 runs at a strike rate of 164 in the death overs, which is a great number. CSK has won 73% of the games where Mahendra Singh Dhoni has batted in the 18th over or beyond.”

Anil Kumble from Team Deano while continuing the debate highlighted the key strengths of Mumbai Indians and why he believes MI have an upper hand going into tomorrow’s grand finale, “It’s all about pacers in Hyderabad and we know that the average runs per wicket for pacers is 45.2 for spinners and 27.5 for pacers in Hyderabad. CSK depends very heavily on their spinners.”

Continuing to talk about Mumbai Indians’ key strength, Kumble added, “Moving on to talk about what have Mumbai Indian pacers done in the mid overs versus what has Chennai Super Kings pacers done in the middle overs, MI have taken 16 wickets versus 2 wickets that CSK have taken. The lion share of these wickets has been taken by Hardik Pandya, who has seven wickets in the middle overs this season. With the bat too Hardik has a great strike rate in the middle overs where he has scored successfully against spinners too.”      

However former CSK player and Select Dugout expert Bredon McCullum is confident on CSK retaining their VIVO IPL title, “I need an opportunity to talk about CSK and how they set the game up and control the game through the middle overs. CSK average 65 during the middle overs for the loss of just two wickets and they go about that through the methodical run gathering as they just knock the ball around. While bowling, the likes of Jadeja and Tahir have worked as a yin and a yang type mentality, where Jadeja is very quick through his overs which allows Tahir to be more attacking, something that is evident with the 22 wickets Tahir has taken through the middle so far, this season.”

Ending the debate in a similar smashing manner he has ended many innings with his lethal deliveries, Star Sports Select Dugout expert Brett Lee said, I believe Mumbai Indians are going to win the VIVO IPL 2019. I will focus firstly on their batting and I believe Hardik Pandya is having his best IPL so far, an absolute cracking season with 386 runs with the bat and three man of the match awards. He has scored the most number of runs (28) from Yorkers this season and has an incredible record of scoring a boundary every 3.2 balls he has faced this season.” 

Lee also highlighted the importance of Lasith Malinga for Mumbai Indians in the death overs, “A key death over bowler for Mumbai Indians, Lasith Malinga has 15 wickets this season, he brings in an incredible amount of experience to the team having played all the formats of the game and he has bought the most amount of yorkers (24) at the death overs.”

The debate saw Team Deano emerging victorious by a single point 29 – 28 and now all eyes will be in Hyderabad as the battle lines have been drawn and two of the most successful VIVO IPL teams so far will look forward to winning their 4^th VIVO IPL title.

The #SelectDugoutDebate is simulcast on 11^th of May 2019, on Star Sports 2, Star Sports Select 2, India Today TV and Hotstar at 6 pm as a prelude to the Grand Finale of VIVO IPL 2019.

Fans can stay ahead of the game with the Select Dugout for VIVO IPL 2019 Finale on Sunday Nay 12m 2019 on Star Sports Select 1/HD at 7:30 PM.