Successful sports clubs in the world have one thing in common, players who stand by the clubs for a long time. Kenny Dalglish, Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes (Manchester United), Paolo Maldini (AC Milan) & Michael Jordan (Chicago Bulls) are famous examples. But in a goat market that is IPL, it’s always going to be tough. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) was arguably the most disappointed team as they had the best dressing room atmosphere among all of IPL’s teams. Thankfully IPL had player retention policies. So CSK did what they could do best at the recent IPL auctions. First, they retained 4 players who would have commanded high prices at the auction. Second, they went after the same players who formed the crux of the team for 3 years. Yes they lost Murali and Balaji but most importantly they retained 7 players of the original team. This combined with the services of new recruits like Dwayne Bravo and Scott Styris is sure to help the cause.
1. Michael Hussey 2. Murali Vijay 3. Suresh Raina 4. Subramaniam Badrinath 5. Srikkanth Anirudha 6. Mahendra Singh Dhoni 7. Albie Morkel 8. Dwayne Bravo 9. Ravichandran Ashwin, 10. Doug Bollinger 11. Sudeep Tyagi
Check the line up again. 6 batsmen, 2 all-rounder and 3 bowlers along with a captain cool makes it a well balanced and formidable team. You’ll almost miss the fact that Dwayne Bravo is a new recruit and not a CSK player before. The same old, happy dressing room is back. No settling down business here. It helps that CSK’s owners, India Cements, is involved with cricket for more than 50 years. So while other team members would be ‘getting to know each other’ CSK would be gunning for glory from day 1. My money is on CSK, not just for this year, but at least until the next auction. Chennai Super Kings ku whistle podu!!!
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