IPL 2019: Twitter wants inconsistent Suresh Raina to be axed from the playing XI

The Chennai Super Kings are the only team to have made the playoffs every season, except in the IPL seasons of 2015 and 2016 when they were suspended from the marquee Premier League. In all those editions, CSK’s star batsman Suresh Raina had a key role to play in the playoffs and the numbers speak for him. But this season, facing the Mumbai Indians in the playoffs, Raina failed to deliver as CSK lost the battle at Chepauk. The Twitterati have not seemed to have received it well. 

In fact, in both the group stage matches against the Mumbai Indians, the defending champions of the much-coveted title have fallen short. Overall in all the three encounters of the two elite teams in the 2019 season of the IPL, Raina has failed to produce any substantial innings. His scores against the Mumbai Indians in IPL 12 were 16 off 15, 2 off 4 and finally 7 off 5 in the playoffs.

However, Raina’s overall history of record in the playoffs of the Indian Premier League speak a different story. In 14 innings that he has played in IPL playoffs, Raina has amassed 449 runs and these include quite a few match-winning knocks to help the three-time IPL champions CSK through to the final of the T20 league.

In this ongoing edition of the IPL, Raina became the first ever player to score 5,000 plus runs in the history of the league. He also claimed his 100th IPL catch in this season. However, this year Raina has not been in his best IPL form and has performed below his usual standards. The veteran left-hander managed to aggregate 359 runs at 27.61 from 14 innings and that included only three half-centuries.

Even though he found his form during the last few games of the league stage but he has been inconsistent throughout the season. Fans on Twitter now want Raina to be axed from the CSK playing XI.

Here’s how Twitter reacted:

I, agree raina is too bad perform in the IPL,so please drop in ipl2020😃😃

— Silambarasan (@Silamba84053550) May 8, 2019

Please Drop #SureshRaina next 🙏😷 #CSK

— Annamalai Valliappan (@Tweetannuval) April 26, 2019

Very poor batting by Suresh Raina #Yellove #IPL2019

— VSV (@ramnavsv) April 6, 2019

Poor performance of csk batting order let them to be on a loser side hope dhoni drops watson and raina otherwise dhoni have to bear the criticism #MIvCSK

— Chowkidar Pankaj (@PankajD_90) May 7, 2019

Drop raina n watson in next match

— Capitalist Comrade (@papa_ranjeet1) May 7, 2019

Csk must drop Shane wastons Suresh Raina and ambatti rayyadu

— Manish (@manish211177) April 27, 2019

Complacency of Raina and Watson who will strike well in one out of 25 matches and Poor strategy by Dhoni after batting collapse not utilising very good strikers like Bravo, Deepak chahar and Jadeja as pinch hitters at one end as openers let to the defeat ,#dhoni #MIvCSK

— Badri (@badri0312) May 8, 2019

Defending a paltry total is not at all happening in a T20 qualifier … Irresponsible batting by #Raina #Watson #Faf getting out to poor shots cost us the match – @ChennaiIPL#csk

— SEN (@i_amspa) May 7, 2019

Next IPl csk need to remove suresh raina and He is in out focus ipl form

— Villu_Vishnu024 (@VVishnu024) May 8, 2019

@CskIPLTeam it's time to drop suresh raina now. He's becoming burden now 4 CSK. @whistIepodu

— Chowkidar RajeeV Singh (@singhrajeev250) April 23, 2019

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