Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat against Rajasthan Royals in their IPL clash at Chepauk.

Chennai wasted little time in drafting in the Australian left-arm quick Doug Bollinger, who recently joined the squad after completing a satisfying Test series in New Zealand. Much has been made of Chennai’s weakness in the fast-bowling stakes and Bollinger is a valuable addition having done well during the Champions League Twenty20 in India last year. Bollinger replaced Sri Lanka’s Thilan Thushara, Manpreet Gony was dropped for Sudeep Tyagi, and Aniruddh Srikanth came in for C Ganapathy, who bowled an expensive over on debut two days ago.

For Rajasthan, the big news was the return of star allrounder Shane Watson. He slotted straight into the opening slot alongside Michael Lumb and Adam Voges, who performed well in the few games he got, made way. Shaun Tait, after bleeding runs against Delhi, kept his place but Siddharth Trivedi and Paras Dogra went out. They were replaced by Srikant Wagh and Abhishek Raut.

Chennai Super Kings: 1 Matthew Hayden, 2 M Vijay, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 MS Dhoni (capt/wk), 5 S Badrinath, 6 Albie Morkel, 7 Aniruddh Srikanth, 8 Muttiah Muralitharan, 9 Shabad Jakati, 10 Doug Bollinger, 11 Sudeep Tyagi.

Rajasthan Royals: 1 Michael Lumb, 2 Shane Watson, 3 Naman Ojha (wk), 4 Faiz Fazal, Yusuf Pathan, 6 Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, 7 Srikant Wagh, 8 Shane Warne (capt), 9 Sumit Narwal, 10 Shaun Tait, 11 Abhishek Raut.