Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have suffered quite a few blows after landing in UAE for the 13th edition of Indian Premier League.

13 members of the CSK squad were tested positive for COVID-19, which led to the team starting their practice session one week later because of the prolonged quarantine period.

As if this wasn’t enough, Super Kings’ star batsman Suresh Raina and veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh pulled out of the tournament citing “personal reasons”.

Despite the series of setbacks, players in the CSK camp are in good spirits as they embarked on their first training session on Friday (September 4).

With less than two weeks to go for the cash-rich event, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan spoke about the team atmosphere and expressed his confidence in MS Dhoni’s leadership under trying circumstances.

"This is to confirm that the team is in very good shape, we need not worry. We have a skipper who has navigated us through very tough times. Thalaivan will definitely take care of the team and we are very confident, we have started practice from yesterday, a day before,” Viswanathan said in a video message to CSK fans.

"The players are also in quite good spirit. They have had regular Zoom meeting where the coach and captain have addressed the players and all of them are in a good frame of mind. We will come out of the tough situation and very happy to report that team is in very good shape to take care of the matches coming up in the IPL.

"I am very confident that the Chennai Super Kings fan club will definitely look up to the team which is very confident of doing well and I sure that the 'yellow fever' will catch up throughout the country and also in Dubai where we have a very good following. Fans of CSK are very important to team and we look forward to your support," he added.

BCCI unveiled the IPL 2020 schedule on Sunday (September 6) and it was confirmed that CSK will take on defending champions Mumbai Indians in the tournament opener on September 19 in Abu Dhabi.