IPL 2022
Follow UsWhen Chennai Super Kings raised the paddle for Deepak Chahar at the IPL 2022 mega auction, taking the price beyond the 12 crore-mark, the bowler really wanted them to stop. For he didn’t want the franchise to shell out such a big amount of money, only to face problems later on to buy other essential players.
In the auction dynamics, where the players’ worth is determined by many extraneous factors, it was incredible the bond many players share with their franchises. And for Chahar, whose skills have helped the franchise build many success stories in the last four years, it was the symbiotic relationship between him and his skipper MS Dhoni that dictated the course. And in a really good way, of course.
Undoubtedly Chahar is one of the most crucial pieces in the CSK jigsaw puzzle and is central to Dhoni’s plans to dominate the teams in the first six overs of the innings. Since his IPL debut in 2016, no bowler has had more wickets than the Rajasthan pacer in the powerplay or has more breakthroughs in the first over of the innings in the IPL. Second-placed Sandeep Sharma has bagged 14 wickets lesser despite playing five more games. If that is not enough to convince you of his impact, Chahar has 72.88% of his overall wickets in the first six overs, the most among bowlers who have bagged more than 50 wickets overall in the history of IPL.
Perhaps the importance doesn’t need more details. What Chahar has essentially done in the last four years with CSK is to blend Dhoni’s captaincy philosophy with his skill to produce some of the best outcomes for the franchise.
And hence, the news of him missing a substantial part of the league phase is a huge blow for the franchise, which doesn’t really have an impactful Indian option to cover for Chahar. There are Tushar Deshpande and KM Asif - both of them have previously played in the IPL but to moderate success. If CSK are forced to play two overseas pacers, it would grossly impact the team dynamics, regressing the all-round impact Bravo may have for them.
One of the primary aspects of CSK’s entire structure is building sustained pressure from the beginning and leveraging on that in the middle overs and death. The presence of Imran Tahir and Harbhajan Singh in 2018 and 2019, Sam Curran in 2020, Josh Hazlewood in 2021, and Bravo throughout the entirety of his IPL career helped the franchise build a niche of their own in the bowling front. Their catalog of success has never been interrupted, barring 2020, because players know their roles and listen to their skipper.
Chahar aced that role to perfection and ensured the four-time champions have their tails up.
“People say I am a good new-ball bowler because I bowl three overs in the powerplay. But the ball swings for hardly an over or two. Swing completely disappears in the third. If I can do that with two fielders outside, of course, I can do that at the death,” Deepak had told Cricket.com last year.
“I am honestly more comfortable bowling at death with five fielders outside. It is easier to bowl to that field-set. Whenever I have bowled in the death, I have never conceded more than 10 runs in an over. But Mahi Bhai, more often than not, asks me to bowl with the new ball because if I can take 2-3 wickets upfront, it keeps the side in good stead. I have always been a captain’s bowler, thus I have never qualms doing that over and over again.”
A case in point was the 19th over against Mumbai Indians in the 2019 IPL final. Deepak gave away just four runs for two wickets to put CSK in a solid position. In 2020 IPL, he dismissed AB de Villiers and Chris Morris at death while giving away just 11 runs in two overs against Royal Challengers Bangalore. While he has never been a specialist for them, with Thakur and Bravo doing the role, he had never conceded more than 10 runs in an over in the death.
All of this might come to haunt the defending champions, especially knowing the flatbeds Mumbai is going to offer in the IPL 2022. Barring a game in IPL 2020, CSK never had to face such a conundrum of playing without Chahar and one might consider that it is an overestimation of his quality, but CSK’s success is largely down to how he held the pieces together to break the opposition back in the powerplay. That lack of comfort would be a huge detriment when the Men in Yellow would take the field against Kolkata Knight Riders on March 26.
