CSK and an unusual night of tactical blunders

The Chennai Super Kings (CSK), at times, are not the flashiest team in the Indian Premier League (IPL). They do not usually run after big-billing players at the auction, and instead, concentrate on cricketers who will play a specific role for them.

They are arguably the most-followed team in the league. However, their brand of cricket, especially for fans who do not breathe yellow day in and day out, can feel... a little too professional.

Since they are normally so prepared and clinical in everything they do, they can often be mistaken for being boring. But in CSK’s case, 'boring' is best, and has led them to five titles.

If you want to draw parallels to another sport, CSK play the IPL like a game of chess. They craft each opening carefully, navigate their way through the middle overs by attacking just when the time is right, and then go into the end game where the king takes charge.

One of the reasons that approach works is because of their tactical astuteness. The ability to always know what is going to happen in a particular game, and be prepared for all eventualities. It is not as if they do not throw curveballs at the opposition to disrupt them, it is just that they are generally so confident in their own abilities and plans, that they rarely venture away from it.

This season, though, has just felt different, at least using the above yardsticks. They have got things tactically wrong, and not just gotten them wrong, they have blundered.

To add further insult to their injury, some of these discrepancies have happened at Chepauk, where the sun rises in the east and where CSK, historically, have almost always won after 40 overs of cricket.

CSK made several tactical mistakes against the Punjab Kings

The most high-profile or glaring (based on how you look at it) mistake came against the Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Wednesday (May 1). Ruturaj Gaikwad lost another toss (although that is beyond his control), and CSK were asked to bat. The pitch was tacky and two-paced, and stroke-making was not very conducive.

They still managed to ransack 55 runs in the opening six overs without losing a wicket – a first for this season. But then, things broke. And they broke to such an extent that even the magicians in their team could not bail them out.

Of course, their failings against Punjab could be put down to individual players not getting going. Shivam Dube will, nine times out of 10, not get out to left-arm spin. Ravindra Jadeja, having been sent up the order to stabilize the batting order, will usually not play all over a conventional leg-break every day of the week, and MS Dhoni, when served up full tosses, will probably park them into the monorail station situated next to Chepauk.

But it was about everything that happened between these individual mistakes that will be a worry.

First and foremost, CSK might need to do something about Ajinkya Rahane. Yes, he showed signs of getting back into form against PBKS, but they might be better served having someone take more risks in the powerplay, or having Rahane bat as freely as he did last season.

The next one revolves around the batting position of Daryl Mitchell. Against the SunRisers Hyderabad, the Kiwi came out to bat at No. 3 and produced his best innings yet in CSK yellow (52 off 32). On Wednesday, he came in to bat at No. 8, in the penultimate over.

Their decision to send Sameer Rizvi as an impact sub, especially when Moeen Ali, Dhoni, and Mitchell were still to bat, also reeked of panic. That the youngster huffed and puffed at less than run-a-ball did not help.

Rizvi, though, was not really at fault. He was plucked from relative obscurity at the auction and to be batting in the middle overs at Chepauk is a tough gig. The blame, instead, must be taken by the CSK management, for they opted to send in a greenhorn despite having two active international batters waiting.

Because CSK sent Rizvi in earlier, they were hamstrung (quite literally possibly) when Deepak Chahar, after bowling two balls, walked off the field. Had they not made the substitution earlier, they could have brought in one of Mukesh Choudhary, Prashant Solanki, or Simarjeet Singh to ease the bowling burden.

Shardul Thakur, who has been featuring as an impact sub himself, was included from the start against the Punjab Kings. However, he also lacked his usual verve. The wicket he got was off a full toss and despite not bowling a full quota of four overs, he went for 48.

CSK, to compound their woes, kept bowling Shardul through the back end of the middle overs, hoping that he would get them a breakthrough. All this while Mustafizur Rahman waited in the wings, only to bowl a maiden over in the 15th.

That so many of CSK’s tactical decisions can be dissected, from one game of cricket at Chepauk, which did not even last 40 overs, tells a story in itself. The problem, though, is the chopping and changing becoming a theme this season.

Injuries to key players have played a part, but this is CSK we are talking about. A franchise that, if given a choice, would rather pick just 15 players for the entire season and stick by them. Everything, right from when breakfast is served to when the team bus leaves, is like clockwork, and it has been that way since the very first edition.

The good thing is that CSK and their team management will also be quietly aware of the abnormally high number of tweaks and how they are going away from what has worked for them over the years.

They will likely find a solution because that is what five-time champions do. They do not crib over what has happened. They find what is wrong and if they were wrong in doing something, they ensure it is not repeated.

For now, though, this will go down as a night of tactical blunders and a night they would want to forget. But as it happens in chess, they will get chances to make it right. They will get chances to come back better prepared, knowing what mid-game tactics are needed to follow an opening gambit, and how the subsequent end-game will be.

Chances are that CSK will be back to being a boring, rid-of-unpredictability IPL outfit because that is what they do. That is what they have been doing since 2008. That is what they need from now until the end of this campaign.