Chennai Super Kings (CSK), one of the most stable franchises in the Indian Premier League (IPL), has believed in continuity, building a culture and trusting their players despite a poor match or a season. In the 15 years of the cash-rich league, this has been the hallmark of the four-time champions as even at the mega auction, earlier this year they went with the players, who were with them in the form of Robin Uthappa, Dwayne Bravo, Ambati Rayudu, Mitchell Santner among others.
However, what happened on Tuesday, was anything but that. Yes, CSK did retain Ravindra Jadeja, on the expected lines despite the repercussions of the captaincy debacle last season, however, that wasn’t the case with others. With age not being by his side and him being way past his prime, Dwayne Bravo wasn’t retained and the pace duo of Chris Jordan and Adam Milne too were released.
Retained: MS Dhoni (wk/c), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Subhranshu Senapati, Shivam Dube, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Mukesh Chowdhary, Simarjeet Singh, Deepak Chahar, Prashant Solanki
Overseas: Devon Conway, Dwaine Pretorius, Moeen Ali, Mitchell Santner, Maheesh Theekshana, Matheesha Pathirana
Slots to fill: Indian – 5, overseas – 2
Even though CSK did retain the most of their core group including Moeen Ali, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rayudu, Shivam Dube but retaining the likes of Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Matheesha Pathirana, Simarjeet Singh suggests that the franchise has began to look towards the future. CSK is most likely to go through a major transition with Dhoni playing his last season in 2023, thus a core group of young players with a couple of seniors will be the owners, team management and the legendary skipper’s ask. Thus, a few emerging players such as Harry Brook, Shashank Singh, and Riley Meredith could be looked at apart from an opportunity to buy back Sam Curran, with a potential of being at loggerheads with a couple of more franchises in a bidding war.
Potential auction buys :
Indian middle-order batters: Manish Pandey, Gurkeerat Mann, Samarth Vyas, Shashank Singh
Indian pacers: KM Asif, Varun Aaron, Chama Milind
Overseas batters: Kane Williamson, Harry Brook, Nicholas Pooran
Overseas all-rounder: Jason Holder, Sam Curran, Sikandar Raza, Daniel Sams, Dasun Shanaka
Overseas pacer: Riley Meredith, Dushmantha Chameera
