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MS Dhoni, famously poor with the toss, won his third in three matches against Kolkata Knight Riders this season and chose to bat in the final in Chennai. It may be a big match but Dhoni seemed unfazed, barely containing a grin as the commentators went through the build-up to the toss. As expected, Chennai Super Kings made no changes to the XI that worked so well in the playoffs.
Knight Riders, though, were forced to make changes because their seamer L Balaji didn't recover in time from his hamstring problem. They decided to go with the pace of Brett Lee, which meant sidelining their regular wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon McCullum, with Manvinder Bisla returning for only his second match in more than a month. Manoj Tiwary, however, was cleared to play after he had missed the first qualifier because of a hamstring niggle.
Chennai Super Kings: 1 M Vijay, 2 Michael Hussey, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 S Badrinath, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Albie Morkel, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Ben Hilfenhaus, 11 Shadab Jakati
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Manvinder Bisla (wk), 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 Manoj Tiwary, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Shakib Al Hasan, 7 Laxmi Shukla, 8 Rajat Bhatia, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Iqbal Abdulla, 11 Sunil Narine
Knight Riders, though, were forced to make changes because their seamer L Balaji didn't recover in time from his hamstring problem. They decided to go with the pace of Brett Lee, which meant sidelining their regular wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon McCullum, with Manvinder Bisla returning for only his second match in more than a month. Manoj Tiwary, however, was cleared to play after he had missed the first qualifier because of a hamstring niggle.
Chennai Super Kings: 1 M Vijay, 2 Michael Hussey, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 S Badrinath, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Albie Morkel, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Ben Hilfenhaus, 11 Shadab Jakati
Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Gautam Gambhir (capt), 2 Manvinder Bisla (wk), 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 Manoj Tiwary, 5 Yusuf Pathan, 6 Shakib Al Hasan, 7 Laxmi Shukla, 8 Rajat Bhatia, 9 Brett Lee, 10 Iqbal Abdulla, 11 Sunil Narine