Way to Go Forward for the Derailed and Beleaguered Chennai Express in IPL 2025

After a win against LSG in Lucknow earlier, MSD & Co looked listless in Wankhede on April 20 with Chennai Express getting derailed by an all out assault from Rohit & Sky. CSK players looked demoralized and played almost like zombies in the middle with no bowling plans at all and the unusual tactical shoddiness from MSD, who ascribed the loss primary to a below par score of 176 scored by the batters.

Game and Tactical Play

However, a 9 wicket loss is rather more attributable to clueless, defensive and mindless bowling by CSK bowlers further worsened by the expected advent of dew. The way Khaleel did not even appeal for lbw on a delivery bowled to Rickeltin showed a clear lack of intent with Dhoni's clear tactical miss signaled the questionability of DRS. Rohit's clear & well known vulnerablity against incoming, full deliveries against pacers early-on was never even tried by anyone. Rather the bowlers kept bowling short deliveries to him which were duly dispatched for sixes by Rohit. Sky's weaknesses against slower cutters, too, was never attempted. Instead, the bowlers kept bowling full to him (his strength) on his legs consistently and he kept sweeping them outside the park.

The tactical moves to bring in Ashwin instead of Kamboj as impact player amid the former's lack of confidence & incoming dew and not letting his best bowler so far, Noor, to come into play till the 9th over were simply unfathomable. So, if batting clicked for CSK yesterday, the bowlers let the team down as 176 was still defendable as PBKS has shown how to defend 113 against RCB simply with self belief. As a die-hard MSD fan and CSK supporter it is so heart wrenching to see your hero go down humiliatingly like this.

The Way Forward for CSK

It's time for CSK to take stock of things and look forward to what's yet to come. The last auction, honestly, did not go well for CSK and they have to contender with existing players by making optimum use of available resources for at least the next two seasons. Let's look at what could MSD & Co do for the rest of this season and over near term:-

1 Leveraging Youth Power in Powerplays: Rachin, Rashid and Mhatre should be encouraged to go all-guns blazing early-on for that blazing start from the outset. Ruturaj to replace any one of them next year. They are capable and if backed enough to play their natural, aggressive game; they can all light-up the stadiums.

2 Middle Order to be beefed-up: Rachin at number 3 and Dube & Conway at number 4 & 5 need to anchor and build the innings during the middle overs for the finishers to follow. Conway needs to replace Vijay Shankar who has been given enough chances to make them count.

3 Inclusion of an Additional Finisher: Would highly recommend playing Sam Curran largely for his batting prowess as a finisher along with Dhoni and Jaddu. Hello also adds bowling variety to the attack, especially with his precise Yorkers and cutters on flat tracks. Simply a couple of bad games early-on does not mean banishing him for the entire season. He needs to replace Overton who brings nothing much in bowling and is a less capable batter than Curran who can quickly score useful 25-30 runs off 8-10 deliveries.

4 Sorting Bowling Attack Issues: Khaleel and Kamboj as frontline bowlers have looked decent with Kamboj clearly showing significant promise. Noor & Jaddu need to stick to their strengths and bowl slightly slower & vary pace to be more effective, especially on flat tracks. MS should also use Rachin as the third spinner (rather than Ashwin), which the NZ team always does, at least for an over or two. It also would engage Rachin better and involve him into the game as currently he looks sidelined. Pathirana desperately needs to work on his accuracy and use bouncers & change of pace effectively as he is becoming too predictable. Curran would be the fourth pace bowler in the attack which could be used, as required, and as per prevailing conditions. This would add bowling variety while also providing options with 7 bowlers.

5 Lastly, Bowling and Fielding Coaches have to pull-up their socks' and need to work on formulating and preparing specific, customized bowling plans for the opponents' batsmen based on analysts' inputs. The fielding coach needs to really push the players as CSK this year have been the worst fielding team having dropped the maximum number of catches in the current season of the tournament so far.

There is simply no point in crying over the spilled milk now that the team is almost out of the race for the qualifiers. However, it's rather time for CSK to instead play fearless cricket through the rest of the season while also trying out new players and combinations for future as per outcomes.

Lastly, for fans, it's a new team this season which has been created from scratch and it will take some time/even a season to get the structure and combinations right so patience and additional support is required for the team.

Remember, on the field, no defeat is ever fatal and no victory is ever final...Also, as MSD himself said long ago, "Don't Blame Others, Improve Yourself" it's time for CSK to do exactly that with a laser focus on the future...

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