BENGALURU, April 20: Chennai Super Kings will be expected to shrug off a rare loss and effectively seal a play-off berth against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League here on Sunday.
Defending champions CSK, who lost to SRH in the previous game for only their second loss this season, will get to 16 points with a win at the Chinnaswamy and it should be enough to guarantee a place in the top-four.
Their leader Dhoni missed the game against SRH due to a stiff back but will probably be fit for the game on Sunday.
�Probably he will play in the next game against RCB,� stand-in skipper Suresh Raina had said after the loss to SRH.
Following the tournament opener between CSK and RCB in Chennai, both teams have had contrasting campaigns. While CSK have lived up to their reputation again, RCB continue to under-perform.
No doubt, RCB will be fired up after the win against KKR at Kolkata on Friday night when they finally managed to defend despite a brutal assault from Andre Russell and Nitish Rana. It was only their second win in nine games in the season so far though they it still kept them mathematically alive in the tournament.
RCB could also take a cue from a similar situation in 2016 when they had lost five of their first seven games, but ended up in the playoffs after winning six of their last seven matches.
In the absence of indisposed AB de Villiers on Friday, Virat Kohli took it all upon himself to post a big total and in the process scored his first century of the season.
Match starts 8pm. � PTI
