Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are set to play at home for the first time in IPL 2026. They will face the Punjab Kings at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai and will be hoping to register their first win of the season. However, IPL 2025 was forgettable for the five-time champions at home as they lost five out of six matches at the venue.
Ruturaj Gaikwad and his men would be keen on making the venue a fortress again. Chepauk was renovated ahead of the T20 World Cup and the pitches were really good in the tournament. Ahead of the CSK vs PBKS clash, let us have a look at the pitch report of the venue:
MA Chidambaram Stadium Pitch Report
Chepauk hosted as many as seven matches during the World Cup and 173 was the lowest total. This shows that the surface has been really good for batting and when India faced Zimbabwe in the Super Six round, they smashed 256 runs on the board. Interestingly, the CSK vs PBKS match will also be played on the same pitch and one can expect a lot of runs in this game.
The batters must make sure they keep scoring runs throughout the 20 overs as a safe score is not yet clear. Moreover, chasing could be the best option as this is the first game of the season.
CSK vs PBKS Pitch Report – Numbers Gameย (Last 7 T20 matches)
Matches Played – 7 (in T20 World Cup 2026)
Matches won batting first – 4
Matches won bowling first – 3
Average first innings score – 169
Highest score – 256 by India vs Zimbabwe
Lowest score – 173 by UAE and Canada vs New Zealand
Squads
Punjab Kings Squad: Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh(w), Cooper Connolly, Shreyas Iyer(c), Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harpreet Brar, Praveen Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Suryansh Shedge, Yash Thakur, Azmatullah Omarzai, Ben Dwarshuis, Lockie Ferguson, Mitchell Owen, Harnoor Singh, Musheer Khan, Pyla Avinash, Vishal Nishad
Chennai Super Kings Squad: Sanju Samson(w), Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Ayush Mhatre, Matthew Short, Kartik Sharma, Shivam Dube, Jamie Overton, Noor Ahmad, Matt Henry, Anshul Kamboj, Khaleel Ahmed, Sarfaraz Khan, Prashant Veer, Rahul Chahar, Gurjapneet Singh, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Akeal Hosein, MS Dhoni, Shreyas Gopal, Spencer Johnson, Mukesh Choudhary, Aman Khan, Dewald Brevis, Zakary Foulkes, Urvil Patel