Can Dhoni muster all of his leadership smarts to make up for CSK’s blatant hitting limitations with bowling masterclasses?
By the time CSK finished serving its two-year ban in 2018, the IPL was supposed to have passed them. Teams had begun to pay more attention to detail when it came to recruiting, keeping an eye out for potential future stars to secure low cost.
Showdowns became the buzzword, and the general notion began to permeate that young, mobile players will likely hold the trophy up high. CSK was reprimanded for being neither, and most of the preseason verdicts were the death sentence for their supposedly outdated approach and a staff over the hill.
But then what is CSK, if not Box-Office? Conventional locker busting wisdom.
Two years later, as CSK attacks another campaign with the same core, there is a sense of mysticism about its patron. Dhoni has not played a match since India’s elimination from the semi-finals at the 50-year-old World Cup last year, and decided to be incommunicado about his future in India for most of 2020. The pandemic and the postponement of the T20 WC men finally brought clarity of thought in that direction, but it is unclear what he can and cannot do on the field for CSK after more than 12 months of inactivity.
Within the group whose average age has now risen to 31, there was an early admission about the need for adequate practice time before starting a season straight from a lockdown situation. They arrived in the UAE in hopes of getting up and running, but instead found themselves in a vortex of chaos. Suresh Raina left for ‘personal reasons’, Harbhajan Singh chose not to travel and members within the CSK bubble tested positive for the dreaded virus.
For all practical purposes, IPL 2020 started long before teams set foot in the UAE. The franchises had to carefully maneuver past all the logistical land mines involved in the mobile bases and then make sure they didn’t violate the very delicate concept of a bio-bubble. Covid-19 could have affected absolutely any team, but CSK has been the most affected.
The three-time winners are also at the end of their squad cycle, without the guarantee of a mega auction next year. They have had a difficult start in the United Arab Emirates and a delay in the start of training. The signs are once again sinister and expectations are reset to a minimum.
What is your best eleven and why?
Probably XI: Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur
With Suresh Raina absent, CSK will need to accumulate as much experience as it can at the top of the order through Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis. Imran Tahir and Dwayne Bravo are also course horses in UAE. Should the need arise to call on the full services of Sam Curran or a foreign pacemaker at Lungi Ngidi, Watson might have to make way for 23-year-old Ruturaj Gaikwad (after overcoming the COVID-19 hurdle) to free up to a slot in abroad. With 419 races, Gaikwad finished second only to Devdutt Padikkal on the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy race charts in the 2019-20 season.
In the absence of Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla brings experience at the other end of the lineup. But, young Tamil Nadu spinner R Sai Kishore might be a better fit if Dhoni is particularly looking to replace Harbhajan’s PowerPlay impact.
What works in your favor?
A good enough bowling attack to end games before it moves into the high risk, high reward territory of death overs.
In the past two seasons, CSK spinners have chosen the most wickets (90) with a better average (22.99) and strike rate (18.9) than any other side. Even without Harbhajan, Dhoni has enough spinning bowling riches at his disposal to dictate terms on conditions that will make you feel right at home. Even before it hits a choke in the middle, CSK has the quality of making multiple forays through Deepak Chahar, who has chosen 25 wickets on the PowerPlay in the past two seasons.
What doesn’t work in your favor?
His flimsy hitting. CSK got off to a slow start to IPL 2019 with the worst PP run rate of 6.44, losing up to 30 wickets in the period. Raina’s defeat not only hits them in terms of racing, but also takes away the southpaw in the higher order that could have negated the proven wrist-twist route that all teams now swear by. The attack rates of the top five hitters against spin isn’t something to write home about either.
Is there an opportunity?
IPL’s move to the UAE could still breathe life into CSK’s title aspirations. Dhoni can muster all of his leadership smarts to make up for CSK’s blatant hitting limitations with bowling master classes. With so many matches spread across just three venues, the deteriorating pitches and smaller totals will only play into the hands of Dhoni and CSK in the tournament’s commercial finale.
With statistics entries of Deepu Narayanan
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