I'm not going to find any adjectives to describe this stadium. It is not possible even. Against the backdrop of snow clad mountains, in Dharamsala, took place a game that defines the greatness of a team that is never tired of winning. Here we go.
19.3 Irfan Pathan to MS Dhoni. Boom. Six over long on.
19.4 Irfan Pathan to MS Dhoni. Boom. No. Booooom. This never looked like landing. CSK are into it again. They have done it again.
That was no big deal. Surely not when you're watching one of the best limited over finishers ever. With 29 required off 12 to get into the playoffs, a place they never missed out in all the 6 seasons till date, all he did was smashing Rusty Theron for a couple of boundaries in the penultimate over before launching his helicopters at Irfan.
This game is an example of how The Chennai Super Kings bat.
The Sun rises in the east. The Sun sets in the West.
A day spans around 24 hours.
Fridays are the best.
Taxes are compulsory.
CSK qualify for the playoffs.
Ladies & Gentlemen, the ultimate constants of life.
So what makes the men in yellow so special? You have your answer in the question itself.
Men Who Matter, With The Bat :
1) The overseas opening slot of the Super Kings have managed to strike gold every single time. Be it Haydos or Du plesis or Mussey over all the seasons. From milking the bowlers from the very first over to giving iron-solid starts to batting through to ensure the hitters a platform, these guys have performed every role to perfection. Irony of the CSK openers is when you look at contemporary MI, still struggling to get their opening combination right after all these years.
2) Raina walks out at 3. One of the better batters in the side if not the best. Apt mix of raw aggression & anchorage. As we'll discuss MSD promoting himself later on, here is another promotion. In fact a giant leap, when compared to his batting position for the national team. With Virat Kohli being the obvious choice, he has the likes of Pujara & Rohit ahead of him, He can never imagine batting at this position for India ever. With short boundaries and flatter pitch negating his short ball worries, how much he enjoys this position?
IPLs top scorer. 2720 runs @140.20
Third highest in terms of Half Centuries. (17)
Second most 6s hitter, after ofcourse, The Gayle. (110)
Only batsman with 400+ runs every season.
Suresh Kumar Raina is indeed the key to how further CSK roars every season.
3) Badrinath. Floater. Support cast mostly. Happy to play the second fiddle & brush the platform to finesse. Crisis man at times. Taking up responsibility in case of early wickets. Batting through & fetching the team a respectable total.
4) HE who? Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Playing higher up the order compared to what he does in the National side.
Result? MAJOR difference.
In T20Is, as journos will say "He likes to hide down the order", really comes a bit too late to finish. But when it comes to CSK, he bats at 4/5 instead of 6/7 & more often than not, manages to take them past the finishing line or atleast close enough for the Jadejas & Morkels & Bravos to subject the final push. Superior, indeed.
But, bigger picture. The greatness of the team is much visible from the fact that its much insulated from the instinctive captaincy. Evident that Captain the player is more valuable than Captain the Captain.
Although you cannot miss the power MSD adds to the value of the team.
Both with the stardom & the bat of course. Chennai's favourite Thala.
The Major Bs - Bowling & Balance :
Bowlers win matches for you. And no one other than CSK has ticked the point better. Even a brief research of their bowling will show how they have always performed as Units. This is not the case with other teams. They usually have a pacer and a spinner in constant and tend to keep on rotating the rest. But CSK, however, differs. & rightfully so. Their bowling attack is balanced and more importantly, constant. Initially in 2010, success was scripted by the spin trio - Murali, Ashwin and Jakati- a strike bowler in Bollinger and a bowling all rounder in the elder Morkel. And when you take this campaign, their attack is built around three medium pacers, a spinner and a slow left arm who can bat. Although the dimension of the bowling has changed, something that never changes with CSK is how they form their bowling line-up. Personnels do differ in minimum but the bowling unit as a whole, remains dead constant.
Balance has been, is & always will be the key no matter whatever the format might be. It gets extra essential in T20s because you cannot afford to make any mistakes whatsoever. Blink & its gone.
CSK, like most of the other things, have mastered this too. Never overdependent on someone/two/three in particular. Like a Gayle for RCB or a Watson for RR or a Marsh-Miller for KXIP. Distribution of Labour as they say. CSK equals the responsibility, top to bottom, I to XIth.
& what happens, everyone wins them matches in return.
The presence of allrounders ofcourse, works like magic.
Whenever you look at a CSK XI, its like OMG he can bat. OMG he bowls too. OMG he is one stupendous fielder too. To sum it all up, they bat too deep, bowl too high & field too good.
The Morkels & Jadejas & Bravos just sit in the middle & create the balance. Impeccable one.
& when it comes to fielding, someone or other is always flying at point & making jaw dropping saves. Be that Mussey. or Raina. Or Jadeja. Or Faf. Or Bravo.
Can you fault them anywhere? Somewhere? Getting jealous like anything.
The Right Ones :
In a tournament overpowered by the Chris Gayles, the AB de Villiers, the Sunil Narines, the Shane Watsons, the Team owners seem to be missing a trick. Dude, this is the Indian Premier League. No?Where are the Indians? This is exactly where the Chennai Super Kings' management has to be credited for their clever domestic picks over the years.
Once you take the other teams on the same board, the truth gets even more brighter. Yes, I'm talking about picking & using local talents & domestic uncappeds. Look at RCB, the Aravinds & Mithuns & Syed Mahammads & Mayank Agarwals & Saurabh Tiwarys. Less the good for nothing. Or the Delhi Daredevils. The Naman Ojhas & Yogesh Nagars. Except for Sandeep Sharma in KXIP & Stuart Binny, Siddharth Trivedi in RR, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni in MI, more or less, each & every team suffers from the same what CSK DOESN'T.
Be it introducing Ravi Ashwin, now Team India's & CSK's frontline offie.
Or giving rebirth to Murali Vijay to an extent.
Or transforming Badrinath. & Shadab Jakati.
Lets take the example of Mohit Sharma. The latest of this lot. Barely known right arm medium from Haryana, picking up 17 scalps in 13 matches with an astonishing Economy rate of 6.23 & SR of 15.18.
Now that is exactly how you construct an absolutely World class team. Pick the right uncapped domestics. Persist. Win.
That, my friends,
Secret To Success Recipe No. 1.
As Stable As It gets :
MIND BOGGLING CONSISTENCY. That is the apt word for a team that has two trophies from four finals and the baggers of the good old statement of "They never missed out of top 4.". Consistency? How? Key? Stability. Not any major changes even after five full-fledged auctions. Look at Delhi Daredevils for a bad example maybe. ( Ridiculous when you value the current team and players they had in their first three seasons - Dinesh Kartik, Amit Mishra, Shikhar Dhawan, Manoj Tiwary, Gautam Gambhir, ABDV, Daniel Vettori & many more. )
The core was retained. Captain himself, Raina, Albie and Vijay were first on the list. The likes of Ashwin, Badri , Bollinger and Hussey were chased successfully in auctions and thus an unit and thus this ridiculous stability. With the same core, playing together year in year out, obviously gives them better chances of desired results.
CSK plays more as an unit than as a team. Beyond a team, really.
So, Secret To Success Recipe No. 2 : One 9 letter word yet to enter most of the other teams' dictionaries. S T A B I L I T Y.
Peaking at right times, approaching big games with much ease and confidence and more importantly giving their best shot at victory, Chennai Super Kings are precisely, Team peerless.
They have always been the team to beat. & from the looks, they will be.
They run a race. Of their own.
Hands shall be raised. Whistles shall be blown. & the trophy showcase will get more & more & more extended. No doubt about that. (unless some tornado hits the thinktank & blows all the sense away & that looks much unlikely)
The Chennai Super Kings are worth it all.
Wait wait.
I sense another addition here.
On this Sunday.
Year-break hattrick maybe.
Who knows?
19.3 Irfan Pathan to MS Dhoni. Boom. Six over long on.
19.4 Irfan Pathan to MS Dhoni. Boom. No. Booooom. This never looked like landing. CSK are into it again. They have done it again.
That was no big deal. Surely not when you're watching one of the best limited over finishers ever. With 29 required off 12 to get into the playoffs, a place they never missed out in all the 6 seasons till date, all he did was smashing Rusty Theron for a couple of boundaries in the penultimate over before launching his helicopters at Irfan.
This game is an example of how The Chennai Super Kings bat.
The Sun rises in the east. The Sun sets in the West.
A day spans around 24 hours.
Fridays are the best.
Taxes are compulsory.
CSK qualify for the playoffs.
Ladies & Gentlemen, the ultimate constants of life.
So what makes the men in yellow so special? You have your answer in the question itself.
Men Who Matter, With The Bat :
2) Raina walks out at 3. One of the better batters in the side if not the best. Apt mix of raw aggression & anchorage. As we'll discuss MSD promoting himself later on, here is another promotion. In fact a giant leap, when compared to his batting position for the national team. With Virat Kohli being the obvious choice, he has the likes of Pujara & Rohit ahead of him, He can never imagine batting at this position for India ever. With short boundaries and flatter pitch negating his short ball worries, how much he enjoys this position?
IPLs top scorer. 2720 runs @140.20
Third highest in terms of Half Centuries. (17)
Second most 6s hitter, after ofcourse, The Gayle. (110)
Only batsman with 400+ runs every season.
Suresh Kumar Raina is indeed the key to how further CSK roars every season.
3) Badrinath. Floater. Support cast mostly. Happy to play the second fiddle & brush the platform to finesse. Crisis man at times. Taking up responsibility in case of early wickets. Batting through & fetching the team a respectable total.
4) HE who? Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Playing higher up the order compared to what he does in the National side.
Result? MAJOR difference.
In T20Is, as journos will say "He likes to hide down the order", really comes a bit too late to finish. But when it comes to CSK, he bats at 4/5 instead of 6/7 & more often than not, manages to take them past the finishing line or atleast close enough for the Jadejas & Morkels & Bravos to subject the final push. Superior, indeed.
But, bigger picture. The greatness of the team is much visible from the fact that its much insulated from the instinctive captaincy. Evident that Captain the player is more valuable than Captain the Captain.
Although you cannot miss the power MSD adds to the value of the team.
Both with the stardom & the bat of course. Chennai's favourite Thala.
The Major Bs - Bowling & Balance :
Bowlers win matches for you. And no one other than CSK has ticked the point better. Even a brief research of their bowling will show how they have always performed as Units. This is not the case with other teams. They usually have a pacer and a spinner in constant and tend to keep on rotating the rest. But CSK, however, differs. & rightfully so. Their bowling attack is balanced and more importantly, constant. Initially in 2010, success was scripted by the spin trio - Murali, Ashwin and Jakati- a strike bowler in Bollinger and a bowling all rounder in the elder Morkel. And when you take this campaign, their attack is built around three medium pacers, a spinner and a slow left arm who can bat. Although the dimension of the bowling has changed, something that never changes with CSK is how they form their bowling line-up. Personnels do differ in minimum but the bowling unit as a whole, remains dead constant.
Balance has been, is & always will be the key no matter whatever the format might be. It gets extra essential in T20s because you cannot afford to make any mistakes whatsoever. Blink & its gone.
CSK, like most of the other things, have mastered this too. Never overdependent on someone/two/three in particular. Like a Gayle for RCB or a Watson for RR or a Marsh-Miller for KXIP. Distribution of Labour as they say. CSK equals the responsibility, top to bottom, I to XIth.
& what happens, everyone wins them matches in return.
The presence of allrounders ofcourse, works like magic.
Whenever you look at a CSK XI, its like OMG he can bat. OMG he bowls too. OMG he is one stupendous fielder too. To sum it all up, they bat too deep, bowl too high & field too good.
The Morkels & Jadejas & Bravos just sit in the middle & create the balance. Impeccable one.
& when it comes to fielding, someone or other is always flying at point & making jaw dropping saves. Be that Mussey. or Raina. Or Jadeja. Or Faf. Or Bravo.
Can you fault them anywhere? Somewhere? Getting jealous like anything.
The Right Ones :
In a tournament overpowered by the Chris Gayles, the AB de Villiers, the Sunil Narines, the Shane Watsons, the Team owners seem to be missing a trick. Dude, this is the Indian Premier League. No?Where are the Indians? This is exactly where the Chennai Super Kings' management has to be credited for their clever domestic picks over the years.
Once you take the other teams on the same board, the truth gets even more brighter. Yes, I'm talking about picking & using local talents & domestic uncappeds. Look at RCB, the Aravinds & Mithuns & Syed Mahammads & Mayank Agarwals & Saurabh Tiwarys. Less the good for nothing. Or the Delhi Daredevils. The Naman Ojhas & Yogesh Nagars. Except for Sandeep Sharma in KXIP & Stuart Binny, Siddharth Trivedi in RR, Ambati Rayudu, Dhawal Kulkarni in MI, more or less, each & every team suffers from the same what CSK DOESN'T.
Be it introducing Ravi Ashwin, now Team India's & CSK's frontline offie.
Or giving rebirth to Murali Vijay to an extent.
Or transforming Badrinath. & Shadab Jakati.
Lets take the example of Mohit Sharma. The latest of this lot. Barely known right arm medium from Haryana, picking up 17 scalps in 13 matches with an astonishing Economy rate of 6.23 & SR of 15.18.
Now that is exactly how you construct an absolutely World class team. Pick the right uncapped domestics. Persist. Win.
That, my friends,
Secret To Success Recipe No. 1.
As Stable As It gets :
MIND BOGGLING CONSISTENCY. That is the apt word for a team that has two trophies from four finals and the baggers of the good old statement of "They never missed out of top 4.". Consistency? How? Key? Stability. Not any major changes even after five full-fledged auctions. Look at Delhi Daredevils for a bad example maybe. ( Ridiculous when you value the current team and players they had in their first three seasons - Dinesh Kartik, Amit Mishra, Shikhar Dhawan, Manoj Tiwary, Gautam Gambhir, ABDV, Daniel Vettori & many more. )
The core was retained. Captain himself, Raina, Albie and Vijay were first on the list. The likes of Ashwin, Badri , Bollinger and Hussey were chased successfully in auctions and thus an unit and thus this ridiculous stability. With the same core, playing together year in year out, obviously gives them better chances of desired results.
CSK plays more as an unit than as a team. Beyond a team, really.
So, Secret To Success Recipe No. 2 : One 9 letter word yet to enter most of the other teams' dictionaries. S T A B I L I T Y.
Peaking at right times, approaching big games with much ease and confidence and more importantly giving their best shot at victory, Chennai Super Kings are precisely, Team peerless.
They have always been the team to beat. & from the looks, they will be.
They run a race. Of their own.
Hands shall be raised. Whistles shall be blown. & the trophy showcase will get more & more & more extended. No doubt about that. (unless some tornado hits the thinktank & blows all the sense away & that looks much unlikely)
The Chennai Super Kings are worth it all.
Wait wait.
I sense another addition here.
On this Sunday.
Year-break hattrick maybe.
Who knows?
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