The performance or non-performance of the once famous team, Chennai Super Kings during the 2020 IPL has raised lot of questions. The primary being the fact that most of the team members were over 35. A couple above 40 or nearing 40. This is not the age to be playing T20 cricket where reflex, power and speed has lot of value. Remember the time when Sachin, Dravid & Ganguly collectively decided that T20 is not for them and moved aside gracefully? As expected, CSK have completed their assignments and have finished at the bottom. There are lot of question marks over Dhoni and the future of Chennai Super Kings.
Dhoni, the biggest problem in 2020
One of the biggest failure this season for CSK was Dhoni. FIrst, his inability to hit the boundaries and sixes. Second, his inability to rotate the strike. Third, his now firm inability to play the spinners properly were utilised to the fullest possible extent by every opposition. The fact that Dhoni came at number 4 or 5 did not help matters much. The moment Dhoni walks in, the opposition will employ one or two spinners knowing well that he will either struggle to score boundaries or he will not be able to take singles. Thus he ended up wasting lot of deliveries. Neither was he able to build on a good platform, if at all, set by the top order nor was he able to take command and score briskly. He prodded for few overs and got out without doing much and thereby piling up pressure on the rest.
He has scored a total of 200 runs in 14 innings. An average of around 25 and a strike rate of 116. These are not the returns of a top player. The fact that Dhoni’s reflex slowed down a few years ago is rather well known. Ideally, Dhoni must have retired from IPL alongwith his decision to retire from the Indian team. If not in the beginning, atleast towards the end, but
Dhoni has announced his intention of captaining CSK in IPL 2021
It seems Dhoni is not finished yet. He will be back to pile on even more misery on CSK next year.
“May be they thought I’m retiring – you know retired from international cricket, may be I’ll retire form the shortest form also,”Dhoni jokingly told Harsha Bhogle after the Super Kings’ win. When Bhogle checked to confirm whether that was actually going to happen, with a smile and a nod, Dhoni said: “definitely not.”
So Dhoni will definitely come back to CSK and will be the captain in 2021 as well. This is by far the longest anyone has been the captain of any team in any sport. If Dhoni refuses to go, then the CSK owners will have to take responsibility and will have to tell him that it is time for him to leave or atleast be removed of the captaincy. I do not think that Dhoni has anything left to contribute to CSK. He has had his fair share of success in the past and now it is time for him to step aside.
Dhoni & Fleming to revamp CSK in 2021 and a much needed one
Atleast, Dhoni seems to have learned from the failed campaign and has indicated that the entire squad will have to be revamped. Having said that, Dhoni is again talking about process. It is something he did with the Indian team and the number of embarrassments the team and the country faced in England, Australia & South Africa are too many to count. He probably wants to do the same with CSK as well. Giving a player sufficient amount of chances is well and fine but it is ridiculous to plan for 10 years.
Dhoni said on the Super Kings’ future plans. “We need to slightly change our core group and look at the next 10 years. Because at the start of the IPL we made a team it served well for us for the next 10 years. There comes a time where you have to shift a bit, change a bit, and hand it over to the next generation.
Admittedly, he has tasted much better success at CSK with 2 titles and 4 final appearances.
Stephen Fleming seems to suggest that he doesn’t feel that there is that many talented players around
“Teams now and squads are a lot smarter and they really want what they want, so talent is at a premium. But, it’s one of the challenges… good and exciting challenges of being involved with an IPL side.”
All Fleming will have to do is throw the net wide enough so that sufficient players are caught within the net. Tewatia, Padikkal, Surya Kumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Varun Chakravarthy, Natarajan are players who are talented and playing for other franchises. Sundar, Varun & Natarajan are infact Tamil Nadu players. They have performed rather well for their respective franchise. It clearly shows that neither Fleming nor CSK have really shown any interest to find talented players outside of the squad whose core was chosen more than 7 years ago. Infact, Fleming agreed that in Suresh Raina’s absence, the batting was brittle. This is a startling admission of error on the part of CSK. It beggar’s belief that a team was weakened because of one player’s absence. It shows clear lack of planning.
Conclusion – A better second half for Chennai Super Kings
CSK towards the latter half of the 2020 tournament tasted much better success. Ruturaj Gaikwad scored vital runs and got the team off to a good start early on in the innings. He must definitely play in all the games in 2021. It is time, CSK distance themselves from older players namely Shane Watson, Kedar Jadhav, Faf Du Plessis, Imran Tahir, Dhoni, Piyush Chawla and Harbhajan Singh. They must bring in some young fresh legs. It will not hurt to bring in certain Tamil Nadu players to add the much needed local flavour. However, this is something that most of the teams lack.