The Chennai Super Kings appear to be struggling productively this IPL season as they are believed to have completely lost hope for a miracle entry into the playoff for 2025. After an addition to losing streaks with SunRisers Hyderabad by Friday, the losers now leave with a total of 7 games lost out of 9 played making them currently at the absolute bottom of the table points. Clearly, not the spot for the Super Kings necessary to be. Everything essentially imaginable that could do wrong this year has indeed done so.
Initially, this year was not to be led by MS Dhoni. Captaincy was supposed to be given to Ruturaj Gaikwad. But an injury recurred, and Dhoni took back the reins. Not that much for them changed under his leadership. His old pal Suresh Raina also associated in the long CSK and India long journey, says some bad work the team made in this year’s mega auction.
Raina shared his thoughts on a Star Sports broadcast, saying, Kasi Viswanathan is running the show up for some time, and Rupa is going to manage getting all these acquisitions and all that stuff around the players. MS knows that this time they just didn’t make that cut. When the host asked who’s responsible for the player selection during the auction, Raina noted, They always ask MS for his opinion. To be perfectly honest, though, I’ve never been part of those auction discussions. I normally just got involved regarding who is going to be kept standing from the last seasons. MS might get called on about a player, but it’s not like he really gets into depth.
It is actually managed by the core management during auctions, said Raina. You must understand that auction is something MS cannot walk alone. For sure, he would have expressed wants in mind for some players and maybe they’ve kept some from that list. Even though there is an uncapped player who’s working hard, check MS at 43 years old putting everything he has in. He would give his all, so the question rises: what then of the remaining other 10 players? What’s going on with the guys making the millions, Rs 18 crore or 12 crore? They seem to lag way behind.
But personally, MS Dhoni achieved a landmark during CSK’s game against Sunrisers Hyderabad – he became the first Indian to cross the 400 mark for T20 games. A spectacular career has been built by this person through his leadership in winning the T20 World Cup back in 2007 up until now in IPL with CSK, capturing five IPL trophies. In his journey, he has scored 7566 runs till today with an overall strike rate of around 135.90 for T20 format.
Even at 44, his batting is not as good as it used to be, but he is brilliant with the gloves, having 34 stumpings, the highest T20 record. It surely points towards Dhoni putting in all that he could, showing sports is the kind of dedication the rest of us admire in athletes. Still, with this team, it might turn out to be a bumpy ride for CSK fans this season if the surrounding ones do not step up.
