Updated April 2nd 2025, 16:20 IST
MS Dhoni and Ruturaj Gaikwad's Chennai Super Kings haven't quite looked like the team that they are and haven't justified their title of being five-time Indian Premier League Champions. There are already talks of Chennai finishing last this season. The Chennai-based franchise is currently languishing at the bottom half of the IPL 2025 points table. With a dismal Net Run Rate (NRR) of -0.771 and with just one victory from two games, the Super Kings are stationed at the seventh spot of the IPL 2025 leaderboard.
Chennai faced crushing defeats at the hands of Rajasthan Royals and arch-rivals Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru game, the 'Southern Derby' was hyped up as a revenge game after RCB knocked CSK out of the IPL last year. But this time around too, RCB had very smooth sailing against CSK, thanks to their intentless batting.
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The right-left opening combination of Devon Conway and Ruturaj Gaikwad had worked wonders for the Chennai Super Kings for the past few seasons, but they somehow changed it up and the decision has backfired. After the CSK vs RR IPL 2025 clash, Gaikwad said that he comes to bat out in the powerplay in all the games and hence he demanded the current CSK openers take more control of the game.
Chennai Super Kings recently shared an appreciation post for their captain Ruturaj Gaikwad, but the comment section was flooded by CSK fans who demanded Conway to come back and open for their favourite side.
Chennai Super Kings are facing a lot of flak due to the current situation with their former skipper MS Dhoni. Unfortunately, Dhoni's knees aren't what they used to be. CSK's Head Coach Stephen Fleming said that MS Dhoni takes a call on where to bat, and that depends on how he feels his body is.
This is something that both MS Dhoni and the CSK franchise should've seen coming. All in all, if a batsman of MS Dhoni's calibre comes in to bat at number 9, it is nothing but injustice to the franchise.
Published April 2nd 2025, 16:20 IST