After hitting a stumbling block in the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League last year where they had their worst season, the Chennai Super Kings came back with a bang in the 14th edition earlier his year.
They could manage to win only six games out of the 14 they played and a lot of those wins came after they were knocked out of the contention for a spot in the play-off of the tournament. They have already managed to win five games so far this season with half of the games remaining to be played in the UAE.
They had won five games out of the seven players in the first part of the IPL 2021 and came back to the top positions in the points table of the league.
They will resume their and IPL’s campaign once again in the first game of the second part against the Mumbai Indians.
Here, we are going to trace their journey from the first half of the IPL 2021 to the second half to be played in the UAE from September 19.
Horrible start
The Super Kings started their IPL 2021 campaign on a torrid note as the opening duo of Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw took their bowlers to the cleaners.
The bowling attack comprising of Deepak Chahar, Sam Curran, Shardul Thakur, Ravindra Jadeja and Moeen Ali was tonked to all parts of the ground. Only Dwayne Bravo could stop the juggernaut but the Capitals were bullish enough to chase a stiff target with eight balls to spare.
The opening game of the season threatened to bring the same story of the 2020 edition this year as well, but there were some encouraging signs as well.
The Super Kings had struggled in all departments of the game but the batting order put on a strong fight against a stronger Capital bowling attack. The return of Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu, who missed a lot of games last season and the entry of Moeen Ali energised the middle order of the Super Kings. They put on a competitive 188 although they fell short at a placid pitch at the Wankhede Stadium.
Dream comeback with four big wins
The big loss at the hands of the Capitals could not compel MS Dhoni to change his age-old strategy of sticking with players and not bringing a lot of reactionary changes in face of losses.
Those moves look stupid and inflexible on the face of it when does not work but more often than not the idea of keeping the core of the team intact has worked well for him and the Super Kings in the IPL.
Even in the last season when all were going downhill for them, their two of the best performances came against the Kings XI Punjab and the script remained the same although the latter came out with a different name this time.
What went awfully wrong in the opening encounter of the season worked magically well for the Super Kings as Chahar swung Punjab’s top order out of the way even before they could realise it.
He picked four big wickets of Mayank Agarwal, Chris Gayle, Deepak Hooda and Nicholas Pooran while Ravindra Jadeja ran KL Rahul out to left the Kings on the brink. They could not recover from the early jolt and the Super Kings chased down a middling total of 107 runs comprehensively with another batting contribution from Moeen Ali.
After such a huge win over the Kings, the Super Kings were up and running and next in their way were the Rajasthan Royals.
Coming into the game, the Royals were in good form with their skipper Sanju Samson leading from the front. However, they could not chase a big target of 189 runs against a highly disciplined and clinical bowling attack of the Super Kings.
There were no stand out performances from the Super Kings in the game but there were valuable team performances in each department to give them their second win of the season.
If the big-bang performance against the Kings and the Royals were not enough, the Super Kings batsmen were to establish that they are back in the game in the next game against the Kolkata Knight Riders. The Super Kings were getting to big scores on the board but their openers were yet to fire all their cylinders and all those deficiencies were to be eradicated against the Knight Riders.
The opening duo of Faf du Plessis and Ruturaj Gaikwad put the Knight Riders bowling attack to the sword and piled on 220 runs with the loss of just three wickets. Faf missed a deserving century but his partnership of 115 runs with Gaikwad and late flourishes from Moeen and Dhoni propelled them to an invincible total.
A herculean batting effort was followed by another stern examination of swing bowling as Chahar came back with another four-wicket haul that swept the Knight Riders’ top order. Andre Russell and Pat Cummins launched a late battle and threatened to take the game away from them but Sam Curran held his nerves in the pressure situation to earn the Super Kings their third win of the season.
After the bowling spells of Chahar and batting might of Moeen Ali, Faf and Gaikwad helped the Super Kings come back strongly in the IPL, it was then the turn of Ravindra Jadeja to come into the scheme of things.
He blasted a 28-ball 62 including a 37-run over of Harshal Patel against the Royal Challengers Bangalore and then followed it up with three big wickets of Washington Sundar, Glenn Maxwell and AB de Villiers to defeat the Royal Challengers Bangalore almost single-handedly.
The Super Kings juggernaut was on its way and the Sunrisers Hyderabad could not stop it. Their spinners squeezed the batting pair of David Warner and Manish Pandey and the Sunrisers could manage only 171 runs although they lost only three wickets.
The batting order was in superb form leading up to the game and the opportunity of earning two important points was not lost with another opening partnership of more than 100 runs between Faf and Gaikwad making a light work of the chase.
With five wins out of the six games in the season, the Super Kings were more than ready to their arch-rivals the Mumbai Indians. The men in blue have been their long-term nemesis and had handed them many humiliating defeats in the past.
The in-form batting order did not disappoint once again even against the best bowling attack of the tournament on a flat pitch at Arun Jaitley Stadium. Faf carried on his merry way while Moeen provided a support role to keep the Super Kings in hunt of a big score. Ambati Rayudu, who did not have a significant contribution with the bat up until that point unleashed his swashbuckling display of strokes in an innings of 27-ball 72.
The bowling attack bounced back after a big start by the Mumbai Indians but the champion side that they are found a match-winner in Kieron Pollard, who overwhelmed Rayudr’s fiery innings and took the men in blue over the finishing line.
Looking ahead in UAE
After finishing seventh in the last edition, the Super Kings would be satisfied with the third position on the points table with 10 points in the pockets. They have seven more games to play against all the sides and MS Dhoni would be doing all his best to keep his troops aware of the challenge of getting into a habit of losing like the last year.
In general, seven wins secure a place in the play-off of the tournament and the Super Kings would be disappointed if they don’t win two out of their next seven games and miss out on a place in the final four.
Challenges
The Super Kings are full of players such as MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Ambati Rayudu, who will be coming off from little to no cricket in recent time and it will ve challenging for them to get into the groove from the word go.
They are facing the Mumbai Indians in the resumption game of the tournament and it won’t be an easy proposition for them to stop the men in blue who are full of players coming on the back of strong performances in the recent past.