IPL Saturday extravaganza: CSK vs KXIP, SRH vs MI - playing XIs and preview

The 2019 edition of the Indian Premier League is reaching its second weekend and the action keeps rolling as every time a week draws to a close, intensity doubles with two consecutive matches for the fans to enjoy.

The April 5 double-header features three former champions taking on each other in a bid to gain an early advantage in the congested points table. In the first match of the day, Chennai Super Kings will take on the returning homeboy Ravichandran Ashwin's Kings XI Punjab while the second game will see high-flying SunRisers Hyderabad host Rohit Sharma's Mumbai Indians.

When and where to watch the matches on TV, online

The match between CSK and KXIP will start at 4 pm local time and 10:30 am GMT meanwhile SRH versus MI will begin at 8 pm local time and 3:30 pm GMT.

Both matches will be telecast on the Star Sports network – Star Sports 1, Star Sports 3, Star Sports Select 1 and their corresponding HD channels. Hotstar will provide the live streaming of the action in India.

CSK vs KXIP

The two teams come into this game with opposing results in their previous encounter. While CSK suffered defeat at the hands of Mumbai Indians, courtesy a late Hardik Pandya onslaught; KXIP triggered a late Delhi Capitals collapse to notch up their third win of the campaign.

In fact, CSK slipped to third place on the points table behind SRH and KXIP after Thursday's loss. Thus, MS Dhoni will be keen to get back on winning ways in the familiar locales of the MA Chidambaram stadium. KXIP will also fancy their chances on a pitch that assists spinners. Skipper Ashiwn, his namesake Murugan Ashwin, Mujeeb ur Rahman and Varun Chakravarthy will be licking their chops to cause havoc.

CSK will be slightly worried about the fitness of Dwayne Bravo who suffered a hamstring injury in their defeat to Mumbai Indians.

CSK Predicted XI: Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu, Suresh Raina, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (C) (WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Harbhajan Singh, Deepak Chahar, Mohit Sharma, Imran Tahir

KXIP Predicted XI: Sam Curran, Lokesh Rahul (WK), Mayank Agarwal, Sarfraz Khan, David Miller, Mandeep Singh, Ravi Ashwin (C), Andrew Tye, Mohammed Shami, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Murugan Ashwin

SRH vs MI

SRH is slowly becoming the team to beat in this season's IPL and sit on top of the points table, albeit courtesy a superior net run rate. Their foreign players have all come to the party and now it looks increasingly difficult to fit captain Kane Williamson in the playing XI. The opening duo of Warner and Bairstow has been a revelation on the flat Hyderabad track while the Afghani duo of Rashid Khan and Mohammad Nabi has also come to the party.

Mumbai Indians, on their part, has started better than they usually do as they have equal number of victories and defeats in their opening four matches. But they will be coming up against a juggernaut as the only match SRH has lost was courtesy a mind-numbing innings from Andre Russell. MI certainly have such players in their ranks and Hardik played a similar innings to stop CSK in their last game.

Thus, this game promises to provide a wonderful to an eventful Saturday.

SRH Predicted XI: David Warner, Jonny Bairstow (WK), Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Yusuf Pathan, Deepak Hooda, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (C), Sidharth Kaul, Sandeep Sharma

MI Predicted XI: Rohit Sharma (C), Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Yuvraj Singh, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya, Rahul Chahar, Mitchell McClenaghan, Jason Behrendorff, Jasprit Bumrah