Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar believes that Chennai Super Kings will have several difficulties related to their team combination and also because they have more senior players in comparison to youngsters.
CSK’s main players’ ages from the mid to late 30s like Shane Watson, Faf du Plessis, MS Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo. Therefore, they are called Dad’s Army. Gavaskar believes that the age factor might affect their performance. But he opined that if CSK comes with a good combination of senior and young players, they can emerge as a strong team.
“CSK has always been termed as the Dad’s Army because of the number of senior players that they have in the team. If you see their age, they are quite senior. And I have always said that if you have a good mixture of youth and experience, then the team becomes a strong team,” Sunil Gavaskar told Sports Tak.
However, CSK doesn’t have many young players in their squad. They have Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Sam Curran, Mitchell Santner and a couple of others as youngsters. So, Sunil Gavaskar reckons it as a weakness of CSK.
“But do they have the young players whose energy lifts the whole team? This is a big question. And that is why I think that CSK will face difficulties in winning IPL 2020,” he further added.
Difficult to fill the space of Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh: Sunil Gavaskar
Former Indian cricketer also talked about the two massive blow CSK got ahead of the tournament i.e, Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh withdrawing from the tournament. He said that it would be difficult to find a replacement for these two seasoned players but he also feels that it is an opportunity for others to prove themselves.
“If we look at CSK’s team, then firstly, they were struck with two big blows in the form of Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh pulling out of the tournament.
“It means that two legends and experienced players are not a part of their team. So it will be very difficult for anyone to take their place. But again this is an opportunity for a youngster to grab with both hands,” Sunil Gavaskar concluded.
Meanwhile, CSK will play season opener against MI on 19th September in the UAE.