IPL 2019: The look of the Chennai Super Kings squad without their top players

2019 will be a tricky year for most IPL franchises, especially for the ones who’ve done well in the previous year thanks to consistent performances from their top international players. Less than seven months from today, England will stage cricket’s biggest event – the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. 10 teams will fight for the sport’s most coveted piece of silverware, which is currently stowed away in Australia’s cabinet.

This is when each international team will put its interests over and above everything else, which could result in most top-grade cricketers exiting the IPL early in order to prepare for the mega-event. Therefore each IPL team will have its dynamics altered in 2019, as some of their key players are likely to opt out of a part or the entirety of the tournament.

That being said, one of the teams that will not be perturbed too much by World Cup preparations are possibly defending champions Chennai Super Kings. In a title-winning return to the IPL, CSK were majorly led by home-grown talent, namely Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina.

The other heavyweights who lifted CSK to a third title were veteran all-rounders Dwayne Bravo and Shane Watson, who are both out of the picture as far as the World Cup is concerned, the former having announced his retirement from international cricket less than a week ago.

As a result, the core of the team stays solid, and although Rayudu and Dhoni will surely feature in India’s squad for the World Cup, they will presumably complete their CSK duties before heading out to England. With the IPL final slated for May 19, they’d still have two weeks’ time to join India’s training camp ahead of the tournament. Each team will also have a couple of warm-up matches scheduled before the main event gets underway.

So which CSK players are likely to step away from the IPL well ahead of the business end of the tournament? South Africa will have a lot riding on their side this year, especially since they will be sans their talisman AB de Villiers. CSK have had the luxury of juggling three quality cricketers from the country, all three of whom are excepted to fly to England in early May to join their national side. Faf du Plessis, Lungi Ngidi and Imran Tahir are the three players that MS Dhoni will have to part with midway through or for the whole of IPL 2019.

England being the hosts are touted as favourites to lift the World Cup, for the first time. Eoin Morgan’s captaincy has done them a world of good, and they will go into next year’s competition as the no.1 ranked side. The ECB on previous occasions haven’t hesitated to call their players back home in order to prep for a particular series, and are more than certain to do the same next year. That means David Willey and Mark Wood will have to take an early flight back home from Chennai.

But all said and done, this group of five cricketers have only played a combined total of 23 matches for the Chennai Super Kings last season, with Ngidi playing a maximum of 7. Hence their contributions weren’t entirely discernible, and in some cases almost invisible. Ngidi bagged a total of 11 wickets, while Faf was useful in the middle order at times, although he finished with just 162 runs. The Englishmen were not given enough opportunities to showcase their talent in the IPL.

Perhaps the only thing CSK will be concerned about is the of lack raw pace in their bowling line-up, but the crop of bowlers who remain are more than capable and possess tons of experience as well. In 2018, the bulk of the damage was done by Shardul Thakur and Dwayne Bravo, who shared a total of 30 wickets between themselves. They also have the likes of Deepak Chahar and Shane Watson who can hit the deck hard as well as get the new ball to swing. Throw in two quality spinners in form of Harbhajan Singh and Ravindra Jadeja and CSK have a solid bowling attack.

As can be seen, CSK are looking fairly sorted as far as the twelfth edition of the IPL is concerned. They won’t be too disturbed by early exits by some of their overseas signings, because their core will remain unchanged. MS Dhoni at the helm also makes a huge difference – he’s one man who is capable of marshalling his troops regardless of the team combination. The defending champions will, therefore, have a serious chance of making it two in a row, and unequivocally assert themselves as the most successful team in the IPL.

Chennai Super Kings Strongest XI from remaining players:

Ambati Rayudu, Shane Watson, Suresh Raina, Sam Billings, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (c and wk) Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Karn Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Shardul Thakur

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