Amidst his commentary duties during Chennai Super Kings’ last match of the IPL 2025 season against Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday, former CSK batter Suresh Raina hinted at a possible reunion with the side next year.
Raina made a cryptic statement that was soon taken on by fans and social media to be a signal that the legend could return to the franchise as a batting coach, a role currently led by Michael Hussey, next season.
However, CSK’s assistant bowling coach remained tight-lipped when quizzed about Raina’s revelation at the post-match press conference. “I don’t know. I have to ask him if he said that,” a smiling Sriram said.
Earlier in the evening, Raina grabbed eyeballs during an in-studio discussion on CSK’s 2025 season with former India batters Aakash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar.
Raina claimed that CSK is in talks to hire a new batting coach. In a bid to dig deeper, Chopra asked if the next coach’s initials began with an ‘S’. “He has made the fastest fifty,” Raina responded with a chuckle.
Raina, who represented CSK in 200 matches and leads the batting charts with 5529 runs, had smashed the fastest fifty for the franchise off 16 balls in 2014.
“Chalo ho gaya bhai (then it is done), you heard it first here!” – quipped Chopra in a potential confirmation of what could unfold in the road to the next season. Since his previous association as a player for the franchise, Hussey has retained the batting coach role for CSK since 2018.
Despite a thumping win over the Titans, CSK ended the season at the bottom of the table with eight points. However, there was some glimmer of hope for the five-time champions in the late replacement signings of Ayush Mhatre, Dewald Brevis and Urvil Patel.
“These are forced changes. There were injuries that happened, and we had to replace. Fortunately for us, the people who came in did well,” said Sriram. “I won’t go back and dig too deep into it, saying we made mistakes at the auction table.”
