When the Chennai Super Kings announced at the start of IPL 2026 that Mahendra Singh Dhoni would be out for the first two weeks owing to an injury, many thought that it was a blessing in disguise for the men in yellow.
A week into the tournament, one feels that Chennai are, perhaps, desperately waiting for their Thala’s return as they seek a turnaround after falling to their third defeat on the trot.
Facing Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Sunday, Chennai lost by 43 runs. Their fate was almost sealed once they allowed RCB to plunder 250/3 in 20 overs. For a team coming off back-to-back defeats, it was too tall an ask.
But even if Chennai were ambitious to pull off a Herculean chase, that was deflated early in their reply when they were reduced to 30/3 inside the first three overs. The top three — Sanju Samson, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ayush Mhatre — fell for single-digit scores before Sarfaraz Khan (50 off 25 balls) put up some resistance.
But once Sarfaraz was stumped off the bowling of spinner Krunal Pandya, Chennai once again looked hopeless. Prashant Veer (43 off 29 balls) and Jamie Overton (37 off 16 balls) helped them cross 200 (207 all out), but it was never going to be enough.
Bowling woes
The Chennai bowlers, however, were once again thrashed by the opponent batters. Barring left-arm seamer Khaleel Ahmed, all their other bowlers conceded more than 12 runs per over.
It’s a little perplexing because initially, it seemed they were bowling better than what they did in their previous matches as they not only got rid of Virat Kohli (28 off 18 balls) early, but also restricted RCB to just 51/1 in the Powerplay.
But thereafter, as the match grew, the Chennai bowlers seemed playthings to the RCB batters, who toyed with them at will. Four among the RCB top five scored more than 40, with two of them — Rajat Patidar (48 not out off 19 balls) and Tim David (70 not out off 25 balls) — scoring at strike rates of 250-plus.
What ails Chennai’s bowling? The list is long. They do not have a strike bowler and the ones they have appear short on confidence, discipline and creativity.
Sadly for Chennai, Dhoni is not a very good bowler and so, even if he returns to action, he will not be able to help them on that front.