Blessing in disguise?
CSK has not had the best of starts this season as they have only one game out of the five that they have played. The five time IPL winning team sits at the 9th position in the table from the season so far. Ruturaj has not had the best of captaincy stints as they failed to qualify to the playoffs last season as well and MS Dhoni returning to captaincy could possibly turn their fortunes around. MS Dhoni’s ability to work with any team and to bring out the best in players might help CSK to counter their existing weaknesses.
Perhaps a bit too late?
The Chennai Super Kings as we all know is one franchise that has turned their home ground into a fortress with a successful winning percentage at home. Chennai has already played 3 out of the 7 home games this season and they have only won one out of those. The Chennai side was probably pushed into the backfoot in the auction itself as they picked a team with not much batting depth and they picked players that were already past their prime. Chennai lack depth in the batting order and the absence of fire power from the lower order restricts their ability to chase or set huge scores. Chennai has an outstanding bowling attack with a brilliant spin trio in the form of R Ashwin, R Jadeja and Noor Ahmad but if you look beyond Chepauk, in tracks that are not spin dominant, CSK might not get as much advantage with their bowling as they relatively have an inexperienced pace bowling unit with pacers who doesn’t have much international exposure. Their batting unit has been the problem this season by far.
Loss of a key batter?
The Chennai fans would probably be rejoicing due to the return of MS Dhoni as captain for the side. But a problem to be considered is that at the moment, The pillars of the Chennai batting unit are Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway and Shivam Dube. So the loss of a key batter, could expose their middle order to even more trouble. CSK are perhaps asking a bit more from the likes of Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tripathi but their ability to contribute is being constantly questioned by the opposition bowlers. CSK has already been struggling top chase totals above 180 for the past few seasons, so the loss of a player like Gaikwad could significantly cause damage to the Chennai Side.
MS Dhoni is a mastermind captain who has won the IPL title 5 times in his captaincy tenure for the Chennai Super Kings and is perhaps the only man who can bring good fortune to them. He already has been guiding the players even without the captaincy but the captaincy on his arm could give him added responsibility. Dhoni might promote himself up the order to take the game deep and fight back against the critics with impactful contributions from his bat. He has started showing intent, as in the last game, he promoted himself up the batting order and made a fighting effort despite the loss. If there is anybody in that CSK team who can save Chennai from this disastrous start, it has to be the man “Mahendra Singh Dhoni”.
