IPL 2020: 3 disappointing buys made by Chennai Super Kings (CSK)

For the last few years, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have never had a great team after the auction. Yet, they manage to win games and make it to the final. They have their core and other players revolve around that core. MS Dhoni and the team management use their resources really well.

This year, they went into the auction with five slots available (three Indian and two overseas). They had the second-lowest purse among all the teams. They went in and bought four players, two Indians and two overseas. A couple of them were expensive buys – Piyush Chawla at INR 6.75 crore and Sam Curran at INR 5.5 crore. However, despite buying just four players, there were three disappointing buys.

Thus, let’s take a look at those three disappointing buys from Chennai Super Kings:

1. Piyush Chawla

One of the most interesting and surprising buys of this IPL auction was Piyush Chawla. Nobody would’ve expected him to be the most expensive Indian player of this auction. The leg-spinner was bought for a whopping sum of INR 6.75 crore by Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

Chawla now joins the already strong spin attack comprising the likes of Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, Mitchell Santner, Ravindra Jadeja and recently-bought R Sai Kishore. There are a couple of reasons as to why Chawla is a disappointing buy for CSK. Firstly, they already have depth in their spin attack and also have a couple of leg-spinners in the ranks.

On the other hand, CSK need to ask themselves if Chawla is worth INR 6.75 crore. The last time he was in the auction, the Uttar Pradesh-born leg-spinner was paid INR 4.2 crore and it was CSK who had the final bid before Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) used their Right To Match (RTM) card. Chawla’s numbers in the last couple of IPLs aren’t promising either. He picked 14 wickets in 15 games in 2018 while he returned with just 10 wickets from 13 games in 2019.