Royal Challengers Bangalore look to break five-year duck against Chennai Super Kings

Unless you're totally invested in the IPL - or any league for that matter - it can at times be hard to remember games that have finished even as recently as 48 hours ago. But in a hectic calendar and the usual haze of fours and sixes, this giant of a rivalry stands out: Chennai Super Kings v Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Numbers-wise, there's no reason to believe this is a rivalry at all. Super Kings are three-time winners, Royal Challengers are three-time chokers in the final. Royal Challengers have lost six out of their seven games at MA Chidambaram Stadium, including two cup finals - IPL 2011 and the Champions League T20 later that year. And Royal Challengers haven't beaten Thala Dhoni's men since 2014; even discounting Super Kings' two-year absence, that's a long time. What's the big fuss then? Try asking fans from both sides who they wouldn't want to lose to. And don't be swayed by what Mumbai Indians say.

A number of these losses have come from winning positions. Remember Albie Morkel smashing Virat Kohli for 28 off the first six balls he faced to clinch a winner? Or RP Singh's epic no-ball that had Ravindra Jadeja pick out third man only to win a thriller and trigger the 'Sir Jadeja' memes? Remember Dhoni's monstrous takedown of Royal Challengers' death-bowling in a high-scoring last-over thriller last year? These are likely to be a handful of games producers will slot in while programming episodes of IPL classics.

Twelve thousand fans turned up for Super Kings' training recently. Most of them, and many others, will be there before the first ball is bowled come Saturday. The opening ceremony has been done away with, but the tournament couldn't have asked for a better opener.

He pulled out of the Karachi leg of the PSL to manage his back niggle, but AB de Villiers is on track to play the opener. Royal Challengers' New Zealand duo of Colin de Grandhomme and Tim Southee have just arrived on match-eve, having finished a hectic international home summer. Marcus Stoinis and Nathan Coulter-Nile are in the UAE for a series against Pakistan.

Super Kings' Mitchell Santner, who missed the previous season, will also have had little acclimatisation time, having just joined the squad following the last round of the Plunket Shield matches in New Zealand.

Pune, 2018: Jadeja took out Kohli first ball. Harbhajan Singh took out de Villiers first ball. Super Kings finished off Royal Challengers for 127 and at the end of it all, MS Dhoni just smiled. He wielded a slow pitch like a magic wand, turning a docile bowling attack - economy rate of 9.19 - into a mythical match-winning entity.

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Shane Watson, 2 Faf du Plessis, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Ambati Rayudu, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Deepak Chahar, 10 David Willey, 11 Mohit Sharma

Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), 2 Moeen Ali, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Shimron Hetmyer, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Tim Southee, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Mohammad Siraj, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal