Former India batsman-turned-commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar, believes for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to have a better campaign next season, they must do an honest assessment of themselves, especially revisit the "gamble" on an ageing squad.
Manjrekar, writing in his column for the Hindustan Times, stressed that MS Dhoni and company tempted fate one time too many, going into another season with players deeper into their thirties.
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Despite limitations, CSK and Dhoni the captain were able to manage in the last two years, including a title win in 2018. However, with the pandemic resulting in an extended gap before the start of this season, even CSK's usual best performers arrived in UAE without any cricket under their belt.
This reflected in their campaign where they won just 3 of their first 11 games and suffered their first league stage elimination in IPL history. But with such a gloried past and a passionate fanbase, the three-time champions can't afford this to be the start of their decline.
"It’s absolutely crucial for CSK’s future that they ask the right questions of themselves and try and answer them honestly," Manjrekar wrote. "Was this an aberration? No. Many commentators, including me, had predicted that this could be a bad season for CSK."
"Gautam Gambhir was the bravest amongst us, saying that CSK will not make the playoffs this year. I gave myself a buffer. I said, “they might make the playoffs or would have their worst ever season”. My reason for keeping a buffer was simply because of Dhoni, thinking that he would find a way to make magic happen again, even with this team."
"By “this team” I mean the fulcrum of the squad, that’s made up (like in the previous two years) of ageing men well beyond their prime and some out of international cricket too, including the captain."
"The perfect analogy for this would be a bowler having bowled three good overs and the captain gets tempted to bowl him one more, but the bowler is no Rashid Khan, so he goes for 25 runs and the game is lost. Dhoni took his gamble a bit too far, a year too far."
Further, Manjrekar thinks lack of home comfort in UAE that the Chinnaswamy stadium provides CSK was also a big factor behind their disappointing results, besides unsatisfactory fitness standards.
"It took CSK four games to realise that the UAE pitches in the first half were not like Chennai, where Dhoni could just play his five bowlers and his spinners would bowl their quota for nothing."
"CSK lost those games, where the morale of a team gets built, because they only had five bowling options. This meant that Dhoni had to give someone like Jadeja his full four overs even when he was going at 10-11 runs an over. Add to that the ageing batsmen who were still taking time to get the rust off, and you have the makings of a difficult season."
"But what really surprised was that Dhoni did not look like he was in peak physical fitness. Shane Watson looked the same. Rahul Dravid told me that he could continue to excel at the highest level even as he got older because he spent a lot of time getting lighter and stronger. This is an absolute must when your hand-eye coordination is getting worse every year."
"In my pre-IPL prediction it was Dhoni’s failures with the bat that I had not anticipated. It may have to do with his fitness. Amongst the other veterans, Ambati Rayudu looked unchanged from the fitness aspect, and perhaps that is why his batting was intact and had not diminished significantly like the others."
In their last two games, CSK have seen what happens when they just back the young talent, with the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad performing well in successive victories. Manjrekar backed Dhoni and head coach Stephen Fleming to identify who are the cricketers that will serve the franchise well from here on.
"No doubt, Dhoni and CSK will address the glaring issues of this season," he wrote. "It’s easy to see which players they will retain. I would think: Rituraj Gaikwad, Faf du Plessis, Ambati, Sam Curran, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Karn Sharma and Mitchell Santner."
"In the support staff, anyone who voiced his concerns about going with the same bunch of ageing players one more year, sign him up first!"
