Four time champions Chennai Super Kings have made a decent start to their IPL 2023 campaign by winning three games out of five.

The yellow brigade had nearly pulled out a fourth win against Rajasthan Royals but Sandeep Sharma kept his cool to give Rajasthan a close victory against MS Dhoni's men.

Although their batting has been strong, their bowlers have failed to restrict their opponents from scoring. Despite posting a massive score of 227 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore, their bowlers had to fight hard in the last over to win the match by eight runs.

Injuries to key bowlers like Deepak Chahar, Mukesh Choudhary, Sisanda Magala, Ben Stokes and Simarjeet Singh have left their seam attack thin with their existing pacers bowling additional wides and no-balls.

Former India opener Virender Sehwag said if this continues like this then the day is not far when Dhoni, the CSK captain, will face a suspension due to repeated slow over-rate offences.

"Dhoni was not looking happy because he has mentioned it before that he wants the bowlers to reduce the number of no-balls and wides. CSK had bowled two-three years of extra and against RCB, they bowled another extra over. It shouldn't go to a stage where Dhoni gets banned and CSK has to take the field without their captain.

With the kind of knee injury he has, it appears he might play only a handful of matches more anyway. He is constantly pushing himself but if his bowlers are bowling so many wides and no-balls, then Dhoni will have to take rest," Sehwag said on Cricbuzz. Tushar Deshpande, who has been given away the most extras for CSK in this year's IPL, once again bowled three wides against RCB but Sehwag was more miffed with spinner Maheesh Theekshana. "It is especially disheartening to see the spinners bowl wides. These are things under your control," he said.

Tags :IPL 2023Chennai Super KingsMs DhoniVirender Sehwag