Two of the biggest sports teams in the world, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), will kick off the IPL 2024 season on March 22. The powerhouses with legends like MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli will go toe-to-toe in the CSK vs RCB match to start the 17th IPL edition with a bang.
Talking with Star Sports on ‘Game Plan’, greats of the game Matthew Hayden and Harbhajan Singh spoke about how the battle between Ravindra Jadeja and Glenn Maxwell could be a deciding factor in the CSK vs RCB season opener. On who’ll win the battle between two T20 giants, Hayden said:
“Maxwell’s most potent matchup is actually the Chennai Super Kings. He’s got a strike rate of 187 against the Chennai Super Kings, averaging 30. But he scores almost 20% of his team’s runs. Now, that’s not just RCB through the course of his IPL career. So it’s the juicy one that Maxwell likes. And it’s a bit of a dark horse because I would agree completely that you’d back Jadeja over Maxwell. But he is Maxwell. He has got that X factor—that weirdness about the way that he goes about his match play that can take an opposition side out of their comfort zone, promote panic, and then win a game of cricket on his own. But he’s one of those unique characters. Backing Jadeja, but be cautious of Maxwell because he loves Chennai Super Kings as a match-up. And there’s not too many batters in world cricket that you can actually say that.”
While Hayden backed his countryman, Maxwell, Harbhajan Singh gave Jadeja the preference to come out on top. Talking about why the southpaw will win the battle in the CSK vs RCB season opener, he said:
“Yes, I’ve chosen Jadeja over Maxwell. The reason being that of Chepauk wicket. But yes, Maxwell is being Maxwell. He is that phenomenal batsman who actually won the World Cup recently for Australia. That if he hadn’t played that inning against Afghanistan, he scored 200 on one leg and hit sixes, which was not easy. On his day, there’s no one who can match Maxwell. When he is in form, nobody—no bowler—can stop him, whether you are Bumrah or anyone. On Maxwell’s day, he is unstoppable. But on this wicket, yes, it will be hard for anyone to start hitting sixes from the ball one. But the only person who can do it is Maxwell. Let’s see who wins this rivalry.”
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