Leadership Muddle, No X-Factor, Powerplay Trouble: What's Ailing CSK?

Chennai Super Kings have lost all three of their fixtures so far in IPL 2022.

Lost to Kolkata Knight Riders by 6 wickets. Lost to Lucknow Super Giants by 6 wickets. Lost to Punjab Kings by 54 runs.

Alarm bells, red flags, SOS signals.

For a team which had never lost their first two matches in the previous 12 years of their IPL history, this is as bad a start as it gets.

But, a bad start does not necessarily translate into a bad campaign. Ask Mumbai Indians.

However, the manner of Chennai's defeats will certainly bother them. A couple of things stand out. One is, of course, leadership. The other is the lack of intent.

The meekness with which Chennai Super Kings have gone about their business is not only unbecoming of defending champions but also massively disappointing for the army of their fans.

No matter how skilled the leadership group and the support staff is, how comfortable they are making you feel and how relaxed the atmosphere around the group is, ultimately it is the players who win you the trophy. Chennai Super Kings are desperately missing the big guns who did so well for them over the last few years.

For context, Faf du Plessis was the second-highest run-scorer in IPL 2021 with 633 runs at 45.21 and gave Chennai some solid starts along with Ruturaj Gaikwad, who himself has been slow to get off the blocks.

Not only that, Faf also smashed a 59-ball 86 in the IPL 2021 final and was a vital cog in the CSK wheel, which has now gone missing with the team failing to buy him back in the IPL auction. His replacement, Devan Conway, got only one opportunity in which he scored 3 runs off 8 deliveries.

Josh Hazlewood was another crucial player who played an important part in the second half of CSK's campaign last year and was the pick of the bowlers in the final.

The Men in Yellow are also without Deepak Chahar, their most expensive pick in the mega auctions, who was the highest wicket-taker in the Powerplay in IPL 2021. Chahar is currently recovering from an injury to his right quadricep at the NCA and, according to reports, is expected to join the team only later this month.

Now, Chahar and Gaikwad are two players who make more impact than they are given credit for, as powerful Powerplay performances go a long way in setting the stage for the coming overs.

Chennai are looking half the side in the absence of Powerplay wickets from Deepak Chahar and good starts from Ruturaj Gaikwad; things which have been the bedrock of CSK's success in the recent past.

If the Powerplay is a worry, CSK have not covered themselves in glory in the middle overs either. In fact, the defending champions have accumulated runs at 7.16 RPO in the middle overs, which has been one of the big reasons for their poor start.

Chennai are acutely missing an unorthodox batter like Glenn Maxwell who can take the attack to the bowlers, particularly spinners, in the middle overs.

Talking about spin, Chennai don't really have a quality spinner in their ranks with Ravindra Jadeja, Moeen Ali and Mitchell Santner not being able to do anything out of the ordinary in the first three matches. In fact, apart from Ravichandran Ashwin and Sunil Narine, all the other finger spinners have struggled in the first week of IPL 2022.

It is the wrist spinners, namely Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, Murugan Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravi Bishnoi who have all conceded runs at less than 7.5 RPO and have something to show for in their wickets column as well.

The only player, and one with an X-factor, who can potentially do some damage for Chennai Super Kings is Sri Lanka's Maheesh Theekshana who has not got an opportunity till now.

X-factor rings another bell for CSK. The team has gone for the likes of Tushar Deshpande and Mukesh Choudhary as replacements for Deepak Chahar but they have not been able to make any mark at this level.

Chennai do not have any extraordinary youngsters either who can lift their spirits. The likes of Ayush Badoni, Tilak Varma, Vaibhav Arora, Jitesh Sharma and Lalit Yadav have made an impression in IPL 2022 and it might not be a bad move for CSK to give an opportunity to U-19 find Rajvardhan Hangargekar.

MS Dhoni, one of the most successful leaders in IPL history, passing on the baton of captaincy merely days before the beginning of the IPL was slightly odd. Yes, he is MS Dhoni, and he does things his way, but Ravindra Jadeja certainly required a longer apprenticeship period before being suddenly thrown into the deep end.

The Jamnagar stallion has only ever captained in one match on the big stage, that too at the under-19 level, and needed to be primed up.

Dhoni calling the shots in the middle is not helping his cause either. One can only imagine the damage it would do to his confidence when the game is being run by the iconic man from behind the sticks.

Now that the CSK management has decided to hand over the captaincy, they must do it wholeheartedly. What's the worst case scenario? Jadeja will make a couple of blunders. So what? The team has to grant him that for the leader in him to grow. Otherwise, CSK will find itself in a conundrum, not only this year, but going forward as well.

Losing crucial tosses and being on the wrong side of dew included, it has been a combination of factors that has worked against CSK, not least the form of many of their starting XI players.

If Shivam Dube is leading the batting charts for Chennai Super Kings after the first three matches, you can only tell the rest of the batters to pull up their socks.

Still, don't you make the cardinal error of discounting them yet. If CSK are successful in getting their house in order, you never know, momentum can be a funny thing.