CHENNAI SUPER KINGS
The Chennai Super Kings start this season like any other season as favourites to win the title. Already having won the title twice before in 2010 and 2011, the yellow brigade will look to end their title ‘drought’ of the last few seasons. The Super Kings have been meddled in controversy concerning their owners in the past few months, but with MS Dhoni in the helm of affairs the team will be looking to put things in perspective and look ahead. With an exciting mix of overseas and strong Indian players they will surely be a force to reckon this year.
Squad: MS Dhoni, Ashish Nehra,Baba Aparajith,Brendon McCullum(O),Dwayne Bravo(O),Dwayne Smith(O),Francois du Plessis(O),Ishwar Pandey,Matt Henry(O),Mithun Manhas,Mohit Sharma,Pawan Negi, Ravichandran Ashwin,Ravindra Jadeja,Samuel Badree(O),Suresh Raina, Ronit More,Micheal Hussey(O),Rahul Sharma,Kyle Abbott(O),Ankush Bains, Irfan Pathan,Pratyush Singh,Andrew Tye(O), Eklavya Dwivedi
Players Retained: MS Dhoni, Ashish Nehra, Baba Aparajith, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Faf du Plessis, Ishwar Chandra Pandey, Matt Henry, Mithun Manhas, Mohit Sharma, Pawan Negi, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Samuel Badree, Suresh Raina, Ronit More.
Players Released: Ben Hilfenhaus, John Hastings, Vijay Shankar, David Hussey.
Coach: Stephen Fleming
Captain: MS Dhoni
Most Expensive Player: Micheal Hussey (Australia) – 1.3 crore
IPL 7 Position: 3rd
Owners: N. Srinivasan, India Cements
Keys to success:
1. MS Dhoni: There must only be a handful of players who have played for one single team since the inception of this tournament and the Indian skipper is one of them. He has been the most decisive factor as far as the success of the team is concerned: the Super Kings under Dhoni’s leadership have never failed to reach the playoff stages of the tournament and have been runner’s up twice, not to forget they have been champions twice!
2. Suresh Raina: Suresh Raina has the distinction of having the maximum number of runs and is the only batsman to have scored more than 400 runs in each season in the history of the tournament. Off late he has been in good form for the national team and CSK would be hoping that he translates the same for his franchise too.
3.Indian Core: The one thing that the team always boasted of is the strong base of Indian players. The likes of Raina,Ashwin,Jadeja and the inclusion of Irfan Pathan into the set up will only strengthen the CSK’s ever effective Indian machine.
Likely Playing XI : MS Dhoni (C) (WK), Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin,Ravindra Jadeja,Brendon McCullum,Francois du Plessis,Dwayne Smith,Dwayne Bravo,Irfan Pathan,Mohit Sharma,Ishwar Pandey.
*O: Overseas Player
