Follow UsShaik Rasheed finally got his Chennai Super Kings (CSK) cap on April 14 (Monday), having waited in the wings for three seasons after he was first picked by the Men in Yellow in the 2023 IPL auction.
Rasheed was named as Devon Conway's replacement in the CSK playing 11 for their match against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.
Rasheed was India’s vice-captain in the U-19 World Cup 2022. In that U-19 World Cup, Rasheed scored 201 runs in four matches at an average of 50. Since then, the Andhra Pradesh player has done amazingly well in the domestic circuit ever since.
While the 20-year-old has hit two first-class centuries and averages 37 in red-ball cricket, he has hit a ton in the shortest format, too, which came against Arunachal Pradesh in just 54 balls. He averages 29 and strikes at 127 in the shortest format. Not just that, prior to this year's IPL, the right-hander was in quite some form at the Andhra T20 League 2024, where he scored 297 runs, averaging 59.4, with three half-centuries and striking at 140.8.
Apart from Rasheed replacing Conway, CSK made one more change to their playing 11, bringing in Jamie Overton in place of Ravichandran Ashwin. Ashwin hasn't been in the best of touches, especially in the powerplay, where he's picked up just the one wicket (Will Jacks), averaging a disappointing 90, conceding runs at 15 an over.
Ashwin, who usually is good against left-handers, hasn't done anything substantial on that front too, with an average of 42.3 against the southpaws, with an economy rate of 11.9. In CSK's heavy loss against KKR, Ashwin was one of the disappointing bowlers, conceding three sixes to Sunil Narine in the powerplay. Not just that, overall too, the off-spinner has given away ten sixes against his favourable match-ups, which has cost his place in the playing 11.