CSK skipper MS Dhoni's batting position has been a debatable point in India's limited-overs setup in the recent past. Since Champions Trophy last year, Dhoni has featured only once at No. 4 in 19 innings in 50-overs cricket and has been more of a floater at No. 6 and No. 7. In the last few T20s, too, he has been walking in at No. 6. However, the Chennai Super Kings skipper is set to have a promotion in the batting order come the IPL. CSK head coach Stephen Fleming said that Dhoni will bat "relatively high" without revealing much about the slot at which the he is expected to bat.

"MS will bat relatively high. It's not necessarily a position with him, but a time that we may choose depending on what conditions we see. But he will definitely play a more prominent role as a batsman. We've picked (Kedar) Jadhav, (Ambati) Rayudu, (Ravindra) Jadeja & (Dwayne) Bravo so we can plan the middle phase. Looking at our side, there are a lot of multi-skilled players, and while not diminishing their main skills there is a lot of options that we can use," Fleming said during an interaction on Monday.

While the former New Zealand skipper earlier said that they are more spin-heavy, he stressed that consistency in performances will be the challenge for young Indian pacers Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar. During the match simulation on Sunday, Thakur was entrusted with the job of bowling the death overs alongside Bravo. But Thakur couldn't find his yorkers and dished out too many full tosses resulting in boundaries.

CSK: MS Dhoni (Captain), Faf du Plessis, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Suresh Raina, Shane Watson, Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, Kedar Jadhav, Mitchell Santner (Unavailable due to injury), Ambati Rayudu, Lungisani Ngidi, Karan Sharma, Sam Billings, Shardul Thakur, Mark Wood, Jagadeesan Narayan, Deepak Chahar, Asif KM, Kanish Seth, Dhruv Shorey, Murali Vijay, Kshitiz Sharma, Monu Singh, Chaitanya Bishnoi