Lucknow: Chennai Super Kings have never experienced a worse phase in the Indian Premier League and their faltering batters will have to deliver to arrest their steep slide in a must-win game against an upbeat Lucknow Super Giants here on Monday.
CSK have never lost five games in a row, including an unprecedented three at the Chepauk, their proverbial fortress. If there is anyone that can get CSK out of the doldrums, it is MS Dhoni but even his return to captaincy following Ruturaj Gaikwad’s injury could not turn their fortunes in their previous outing on Friday.
Considering their struggles against spinners at home, the batters would not mind playing an away game in a desperate attempt to find form. The absence of their best batter, Gaikwad, thus makes their comeback bid all the more difficult.
CSK have been accused of sheltering players past their prime in the past and those questions have expectedly resurfaced after a record losing streak. The lack of power-hitters in their squad has also become a talking point with Dhoni himself conceding that even targeting 60 runs in the powerplay is a tad too ambitious for them. Openers Rachin Ravindra and Devon Conway are two fine batters but expecting them to go hammer and tongs from ball one goes against their style of play.
Rahul Tripathi, coming in place of Gaikwad at three, will be under immense pressure to perform. The team also needs to get more out of veteran all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.
Shivam Dube needs more support on the power-hitting front and best placed to do that is Dhoni himself but his constant change of batting position, the last outing was at no.9, makes the task tougher for the World Cup winning skipper.
After the last game, CSK batting coach Mike Hussey said that his team is not going to throw in the towel just yet.
“I still think we’ve got the right players. There’s a lot of talk about the style of our play. But the players we’ve got, we don’t want to ask them to play in a completely different way; that’s natural to them,” said Hussey after the loss to KKR.