Chennai, April 5 After five-time Indian Premier League (IPL) champions Chennai Super Kings suffered their second successive home defeat in IPL 2025, skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad admitted that the power-play phase is a major concern for them in both batting and bowling.
At the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Saturday, CSK were clueless yet again regarding their batting make-up and were off the mark in terms of executing their shots as they eventually finished at 158/5, and lost to Delhi Capitals by 25 runs.
Apart from inept bowling, CSK’s batting unravelled yet again in the power-play, as they were reduced to 46/3, despite including Devon Conway in the playing eleven. Their power-play run rate of 7.4 is currently the lowest amongst all ten teams in IPL 2025.
"Not today, since the last three games, it's not really going our way. We're trying our level best in all three departments. I think powerplay is definitely a concern for us, in the batting and bowling departments. We've spotted that since the second game.”
“We're trying, but it's just not happening. I just think that we are over-concerned or tentative about who's coming on to bowl in the powerplay... we're losing a wicket in the first or second over. We're just over-concerned about things in the powerplay,” said a dejected Gaikwad after the match ended.
The loss against DC would hurt CSK even more, as none of their three spinners completed their quota of overs, as KL Rahul made a superb 77. Later in the chase, the shaky power-play meant the rest of the batters in the middle and lower order hardly gave any fight or made any serious effort to have a crack at chasing the total.
“Everyone needs to come together. We need to make those things happen. Since the power-play, we were always playing a catch-up game. We had Ash (Ashwin) at No. 8, and we didn't have Overton. The plan was to take it as deep as possible. DC bowled really well. Even when Shivam was batting, we were looking for momentum, but we just couldn't get it," added Gaikwad.
With CSK now in eighth place in the points table, the clock is ticking fast on Gaikwad & Co. to make a turnaround in the tournament. CSK will now travel to Chandigarh to take on Shreyas Iyer-led Punjab Kings at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur on Tuesday.
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