IPL 2020 auction was held on last Thursday (19th December) at Kolkata. Like the other franchise teams, IPL 2019 runners-up Chennai Super Kings (CSK) also participated in that auction and bought four players, including two overseas cricketers.
Chennai Super Kings is a big name in Indian Premier League (IPL) history. While Mumbai Indians (MI) created a new record in the last season by winning their fourth crown in IPL history, the three-time IPL winning side CSK finished as the runners-up. It was a thrilling final while CSK missed the trophy for just one run.
While CSK is known for their consistent performances in IPL tournaments, as they never finished under the top four positions in the IPL season, they are passionate to carry this momentum in the next season. Before analysing the present CSK squad, here is the full list of CSK’s entire purchase in the IPL 2020 auction.
| Player | Role | Base Price (INR) | Sold Price (INR) |
| Piyush Chawla | Right-arm leg break | 1,00,00,000 | 6,75,00,000 |
| Sam Curran | All-rounder | 1,00,00,000 | 5,50,00,000 |
| Josh Hazlewood | Right-arm fast-medium | 2,00,00,000 | 2,00,00,000 |
| R. Sai Kishore | Slow left-arm orthodox | 20,00,000 | 20,00,000 |
CSK added four good bowlers in the already strong bowling line-up
In IPL 2020 auction, CSK put their entire importance to the bowling side. The Chennai franchise bought one Indian leg-spinner (Piyush Chawla) and left-arm spinner (R. Sai Kishore), one English left-arm pace bowling all-rounder (Sam Curran) and one Australian right-arm pacer (Josh Hazlewood).
In the last season, CSK had the dominant bowling side, and they have retained all those successful bowlers for IPL 2020. While the leg-spinner Imran Tahir (26 wickets) won the purple cap after finishing as the most wicket-taker in IPL 2019, the right-arm pacer Deepak Chahar (22 wickets) finished as the third most wicket-taker in that season. Moreover, the CSK overall bowling line-up finished with the best economy rate among the eight teams in IPL 2019.
Despite these strong bowling performances, CSK still bought some more top quality bowlers from the latest auction. Piyush Chawla, Josh Hazlewood and youngster Sam Curran all are the high-quality bowlers, and their joining will surely make the bowling line-up more solid and dangerous. After the latest auction, CSK has not only filled up almost all the aspect of their bowling line-up but also secured the proper alternate bowlers for almost every aspect.
Batting is still a concern
While the strong CSK bowlers never conceded 180 runs in the IPL 2019, their batting line-up also never scored the 180 runs in that same season as their highest total in IPL 2019 was 179/4 (20 overs). All the regular batsmen are more than 30-year-old. Though the batting side is very experienced and dependable, none of their batsmen reached even the 450 runs mark in IPL 2019. While the captain MS Dhoni (416 runs) was the highest run-scorer of the team in IPL 2019, who was the middle-order batsman, the other top three batsmen were close to the 400 run marks.
While most of the IPL 2019 teams had consistent top-order batsmen who mostly provided the good starts, CSK top-orders were lesser effective in their batting line-up. In most of the times, the middle-order batsmen played huge roles in their batting.
Also, their running between the wickets is not strong enough. Not having young blood in the regular batting side have affected the running between the wickets of CSK. So, we can say that the CSK has missed the big trick in the latest IPL auction by not adding some young active top-order batsmen in the squad.
However, their fielding side is good enough, despite not having many young or middle-aged players.
Full squad: MS Dhoni (Captain/wk), Faf du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu, M Vijay, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Lungi Ngidi, Shardul Thakur, Piyush Chawla, Josh Hazlewood, R Sai Kishore, Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Monu Kumar, Karn Sharma, Sam Curran, N Jagadeesan