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Five-time champions and the most successful team in the history of the IPL, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) started the tournament with a bang recording two thumping victories at home. However, since then, they seem to have lost a bit of momentum and have lost two away games on the trot. CSK’s batting has come under the scanner – while Ruturaj Gaikwad is slow off the blocks against the new ball, Daryl Mitchell hasn’t had the best of starts to the season. CSK also aren’t getting the impetus in the death overs and may need a reshuffle in the line-up.
Gaikwad – the anchor – counter-productive for CSK
Gaikwad has scored just 88 runs in four innings this season. More worrying than his batting average of 22 is his strike rate of 118.9 which places him amongst the five slowest batters in the tournament (min. 50 balls faced). Gaikwad’s scoring rate makes him the second-slowest batter in the powerplay (min. 20 balls faced) after Mayank Agarwal in the tournament.
Gaikwad scored a run-a-ball 15 in CSK’s opening encounter against RCB playing second fiddle to the aggressor Rachin Ravindra. It was a similar story against the Titans where he accumulated 46 off 36 deliveries at a strike rate of 127.8 while Ravindra went all-guns blazing from the other end.
It has been CSK’s long-lasting strategy to take risks only from one end and while this may have worked in the past on slow spinner-friendly surfaces and familiar conditions at Chepauk, it will be counter-productive on flatter batting tracks elsewhere. Furthermore, it is a massive under-utilization of the batting prowess of Gaikwad who hammered 590 runs at a strike rate of 147.5 in 2023!
As it panned out, CSK were victorious in their opening two encounters at home so there wasn’t much scrutiny on Gaikwad’s approach at the top of the order. However, the opener was dismissed for a solitary one (off two deliveries) in the loss against the Capitals at Visakhapatnam and then scored a cautious 26 off 21 deliveries at a strike rate of 123.8 in the defeat against SRH in Hyderabad. With Ravindra also failing to provide the impetus at the start in the last two outings for CSK, suddenly the focus has shifted to Gaikwad – the anchor and how this cautious approach from one end might be adversely affecting CSK’s chances this season.
Daryl Mitchell – no impact in the middle-order
CSK shelled out a whopping INR 14 crore on Daryl Mitchell at the 2024 IPL Auction after his heroics for New Zealand in the World Cup in India. Mitchell, in particular, was expected to take the attack to the spinners in the middle overs after an impressive showing against the slower bowlers in the marquee tournament. However, he has been in poor form in IPL 2024 mustering just 93 runs in four innings with a high of 34 at a strike rate of 124.
This suggests that neither has Mitchell produced the big knocks nor the cameos. He failed to convert starts to substantial performances against the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Delhi Capitals while also falling short to provide the impetus at the death in his remaining two outings against the Gujarat Titans and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Jadeja’s falling death-overs’ strike rate
Ravindra Jadeja hasn’t been at his destructive best as a finisher this season. Barring his unbeaten 25 off 17 deliveries in the six-wicket win against the Challengers, he has disappointed with the bat in his other three outings in the tournament. Jadeja walked out to bat at 102/5 against the Capitals with the required run-rate touching 14. CSK went down by 20 runs with Jadeja unbeaten on 21 off 17 deliveries.
Although the asking-rate was high, more impossible targets have been achieved from similar situations many times in the league’s history. But it seemed Jadeja had shut shop and was content in rotating the strike – the left-hander played just six attacking shots of the 17 deliveries he faced! It was a strange kind of innings which never got going! Partially, it was lack of intent but even when he tried, he managed to pick the fielders at the edge of the circle or on the boundary and was unable to clear the ropes even once!
The story repeated in Hyderabad when Jadeja was promoted to number 5 ahead of Mitchell and the in-form MS Dhoni but could only manage 31 off the 23 deliveries he faced. Once again, Jadeja failed to hit any sixes during his stay at the crease. He walked out to bat at 119 for 3 in the 14th over with CSK’s run-rate at 8.7. By the time the innings had wrapped up, they had trudged along to 165/5 at a run-rate of 8.25. There was no acceleration. It was a below-par total which the Sunrisers gunned down with 11 deliveries to spare.
Jadeja has just hit five fours in 37 deliveries in the death overs (16-20) while not clearing the fence even once. His strike rate of 143.2 in the last five overs places him in the bottom 5 with Mitchell also on the list. Jadeja had a strike rate of 206.7 in the death overs in 2020. It went down marginally to 185.4 in 2021 before plummeting to 150.8 in 2022. The trend continued and Jadeja saw his scoring rate in the final 5 overs dip to 147.8 last season.
Not surprisingly, CSK have the third-worst balls per boundary ratio (every 4.9 deliveries) in the death overs and have recorded the least number of sixes (7) amongst all franchises in this phase of play. They also have the lowest boundary percentage (percentage of runs scored in fours and sixes) in the final 5 overs. Perhaps, it is time to push MSD up in the batting order.
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