With back to back wins in their last two matches in IPL this season, Chennai Super Kings have climbed to the sixth spot in the points table with ten points in ten matches. With four matches still left for the team in the league stage, the Ruturaj Gaekwad led Chennai team will face Lucknow Super Giants twice, first at Lucknow on May 10th and then at Chennai on May 15 before they face Sunrisers Hyderabad at Chennai on May 18 and Gujarat Titans at Ahmedabad on May 21. Former Indian spinner and two-time IPL winner Ravichandran Ashwin believes if Chennai can score a win over Lucknow Super Giants in these two matches, he sees no reason the team can win the remaining two matches and qualify for the play-offs.
“Chennai Super Kings are going to play two games against Lucknow Super Giants. Let’s not make the mistake of saying this ahead of time. LSG are no pushovers but in case they (Chennai) beat LSG in both those games come May 15, I don’t see a reason Chennai would not qualify. The point is If they win these two by 15th, they would have four on the bounce, right. And there is no reason why they wouldn’t win two more on the bounce,” said Ashwin while speaking with ESPNCricinfo.
The Rituraj Gaekwad led side, which has seen MS Dhoni not being fit and not playing a single game yet in IPL so far, started their IPL campaign with three successive losses before scoring two consecutive wins. The last five matches have seen Chennai winning three matches with two of their wins coming in their last two matches. When asked about what went wrong for Chennai initially as well in the matches they lost, Ashwin shared how some bizarre decision making including the dropping of Sarfraz Khan does not make sense to him. “Some of the decision making has been a little bizarre for me as well. You start the tournament with someone like Sarfaraz Khan. Who’s not had a great IPL before. He has been probably here and there with RCB. And he turns up and looks like he is batting a million dollars. And he is not even playing games after that. And within the know of what I have said, I did expect this to happen at some stage with Sarfaraz having to compromise on his piston and I didn’t think it would come to that. He could still be a very viable number three option,” shared Ashwin.
West Indies’ left-arm spinner Akeal Hossein, who was bought by Chennai for Rs two crore in last year’s auction, has played only in five matches this IPL. After taking four wickets against Mumbai in Chennai’s win last month, the spinner played in the match against Gujarat Titans but then was dropped in the game against Mumbai Indians at Chennai. Hossein played against Delhi Capitals this week and claimed the wicket of KL Rahul giving away only 19 runs in his spell. Ashwin also shared how he sees the dropping of Hossein as a ‘strange thing’ to understand . “For me, the team utilising Akeal Hossein has been kind of strange to understand. But I can eventually say with firmness that there is some theory behind that. So when they left him out of the SRH game, they had clearly.. We can say whatever we want. Form bowler, left arm spinner against left hander, you can still back them. But the team is clearly telling everybody that we are not going to use the left arm spinner inside the power play if there are going to be left handers facing them inside the power play. The moment they found two right-handers in the form of Pathum Nissanka and KL Rahul in Delhi, they play. So they are clear, if they find a right matchup, they will play him,” Ashwin added.
