The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) recently recorded a four-wicket defeat to Punjab Kings (PBKS), becoming the first team to be knocked out of IPL 2025 and the first time missing the playoffs for consecutive seasons.
CSK’s season was disrupted early when Ruturaj Gaikwad, their regular skipper, was ruled out with an elbow injury. The captaincy duties returned to legendary MS Dhoni which not by choice but necessity. Despite not producing desired results, former Australia captain Aaron Finch backed Dhoni and mentioned that his presence on the field at the age of 43 is magical to watch, and fans should cherish every moment till he is playing.
“When Dhoni gave up the captaincy a few years ago, I don’t think he thought he’d have to deal with all this again. But it hasn’t gone CSK’s way this season. MS is 43, not playing much cricket, just turning up for the IPL — but every moment he’s on the field is magical. The noise when he walks out of the dressing room… when he comes out to bat, It’s unbelievable. I urge every cricket fan — if you can, you must go to a CSK game while MS Dhoni is still playing,” he said on JioStar.
In the match, even with Sam Curran’s brilliant 88 off 47 balls and a decent total of 190, CSK collapsed under pressure as Punjab chased down the target with two balls to spare. The contributions from Shreyas Iyer (72) and Prabhsimran Singh (54), whose match-winning 72-run partnership took the game away from CSK.
Meanwhile, Finch believes another concern this season for CSK has been the hesitation to play pacer Nathan Ellis. Despite being a threat in the death overs, Ellis has featured in only one match, where he picked up a wicket against Mumbai Indians.
“If CSK are admitting things haven’t gone right, then yes — they need to go back to the drawing board. I can’t believe Nathan Ellis hasn’t played more regularly. He’s a world-class bowler who can operate in all three phases. Meanwhile, Pathirana’s been going around the park and not executing like he used to. CSK have lacked finishing ability with the bat — you add 20 more runs today and the game becomes very different. I actually thought they had enough runs until the heavy dew came in late. But overall, the fielding has been poor, with catches going down. That puts you on the back foot — and when that happens, you need to play a near-perfect game to win,” Finch added.
