IPL 2021 | CSK Team Preview: MS Dhoni faces uphill task to keep the sinking Super Kings afloat

Jim Collins, an American researcher and writer, who has written many books on industries and companies, has said in his book ‘Good to Great’ that companies that attain great heights over time identify their ‘who’ than deciding on their ‘what.’ Collins asserted that when companies find out who are the best individuals for them, eventually, those individuals will decide the best plan of action and its execution to produce desirable results.

Taking the idea from Good to Great to cricket, and the Chennai Super Kings will surely be identified as one of those companies who focussed and identified the personnel, instead of identifying themselves as a group with a certain style of playing. 

That is the reason, the team management has had retained the core players of the franchise and has tasted success over a long period of time albeit playing a different style of cricket in different seasons. In some seasons, they had an impressive bowling attack mixed with overseas pacer and Indian talents in the spin department while in other seasons, they have had flamboyant batsmen. 

They have been able to find out a way to win with some of the unlikeliest ways and there was no dearth of heroes in the team, as they had the personnel to pull off things that others believed out of their reach.

All of this used to make up for a good story about a franchise before it all unravelled in the last season of the Indian Premier League. The year 2020 was no ordinary year in the history of the game, and as quintessential IPL has been for the world of cricket, the Chennai Super Kings could not get away unscathed by it. The last season was their worst performance as they could not qualify for the playoffs for the first time in a 13-year long history of the league.

The debacle asked many questions of the team management and the critics wondered if the strategy of backing players for an extended period of time which used to yield good results is past its expiry date. Or, if the players who were backed to produce goods were simply past their primes and like all good things of this world, they were onto their ends.

The campaign had started on a brilliant note with the men in yellow triumphing against their arch-rivals Mumbai Indians. But, it transformed into bad to worse instead of becoming good to great for the MS Dhoni-led side in the last seasons as they failed to execute some of the best and typical strategies from their heydays.

The only two essential elements of CSK—Spin bowling and experienced batting line up were exposed with each passing game as spinners failed to extract anything on the surfaces in the UAE while ageing batsmen found it tough to get going from the word go.

At Sharjah, where pitches were flat and boundary were smaller in size, their bowlers plummeted to all parts of the ground but in reply, their batsmen failed to capitalise on the same playing conditions opposition batsmen made merry on. On the other hand, on relatively better pitches for bowling and larger grounds in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, their spinners failed to imply pressure as the trio of Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla and then Karn Sharma failed to imply any sort of pressure on opposition batsmen.

MS Dhoni’s take it deep mantra- past expiry date?

MS Dhoni is the principal ambassador of CSK, not only in terms of being their iconic player and captain but also as their philosophical father. 

He always believed that taking games deep into the later overs can put pressure back on bowlers and they can provide loose balls which they otherwise would not offer in a tense game and the ideology crept into the thinking of the overall team whenever they needed finishers.

However, this strategy, too, like other fruitful ones of their successful days, did not pave the way for their success or comeback in the last season as Dhoni himself failed to walk the talk on his own principles. His power has been waning and the effect it has had on the team’s outlook was telling in the last season.

Going into the upcoming season, one question that is dominating the mind of every CSK fan is: Will Dhoni finally give up on his idea of taking the game deep this season? 

There are good reasons for Dhoni to unlearn his own disciplines while chasing and to throw caution to the wind as it will allow at least someone in case of his failure to do the job and become a hero on that particular day. 

The side will have the services of good finishers in the form of Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, and Moeen Ali and hence MS Dhoni must contemplate saying good riddance to his erstwhile successful tactic.

Horses for courses and curse of neutral venues

A lot of CSK’s frailties would have been brushed under the carpet had they played half of their season on slow and low pitches at their home ground in Chennai. However, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the tournament out of India and exposed their lack of depth in the spin department.

The CSK management would have hoped for a return to India and Chennai and it was evident with their picks in the auction earlier this year. They missed an off-spinner last year as Harbhajan Singh pulled out of the tournament and this time they hunted for off-spinners who could offer them momentum with the bat in later overs in Moeen Ali and Krishnappa Gowtham.

The duo is well above 30 years of age and it can be safely assumed that Dhoni and the management team went for them keeping in mind the playing conditions at the Chepauk. However, the team will not be playing any of their games on their home ground and hence the plan of bringing Ali and Gowtham has been thrown into disarray.

Return of Raina

Suresh Raina has been second to only MS Dhoni in the CSK pecking order and hence when he left the side after reaching the UAE with the team, the episode had proved to be an embarrassing one for the team management.

Raina has lost the touch that once made him the undisputed IPL king with the bat, but his absence hurt CSK batting big time last year.  They could not find another batsman who could switch between the roles of an enforcer and accumulator which Raina used to do swiftly in the previous seasons.

He has been an instrumental figure in making the CSK a force to reckon with in the history of IPL and the Dhoni-Fleming duo will be elated to see the ‘Chinathala’ back to the number three for the team come April 10 against the Delhi Capitals.

Indian talents

The franchise has been able to provide a platform to many Indian talents who cashed in on the opportunity to make a name for themselves. However, MS Dhoni put his weight behind all experienced pros in the early part of the league till the point the campaign was all but over for them.

Having seen the senor men floundering to execute, Dhoni called up young guns in a bid to start the ‘rebuilding process’ of the team, but the tide got too far ahead from them.

The move paid off as Ruturaj Gaikwad who was not getting a place at the top of the order for the pair of Faf du Plessis and Shane Watson rose to prominence with three back to back half-centuries in the campaign.

Hence, a lot of the team’s fortunes will rest on Gaikwad’s shoulder as he is one of the certain starter for the side and along with the likes of Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar and Gowtham can script a dreamy turnaround for the second most successful IPL franchise in the upcoming edition.

CSK full squad

Indian players

Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, N. Jagadeesan (WK), Robin Uthappa, MS Dhoni (C & WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Karn Sharma, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, KM Asif, K Gowtham, Cheteshwar Pujara, M Harisankar Reddy, K. Bhagath Varma, C Hari Nishanth, R. Sai Kishore

Overseas players

Faf du Plessis, Mitchell Santner, Imran Tahir, Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Lungi Ngidi, Moeen Ali

Support staff

Batting Coach- Michael Hussey

Bowling Coach- Lakshmipathy Balaji

Bowling Consultant- Eric Simons

Fielding Coach- Rajiv Kumar

Throwdown Specialist- Narasimhan V.

Physio- Tommy Simsek

Physical Trainer- Greg King

High-Performance analyst- Lakshmi Narayanan

Team Doctor-  Madhu Thottappillil

CSK strongest XI in IPL 2021

Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Krishnappa Gowtham, Sam Curran, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Lungi Ngidi/Moeen Ali