CSK’s batting order “a stopgap arrangement”, says Chopra with even head coach Fleming agreeing to the assessment.
Aakash Chopra calls CSK’s batting order “a stopgap arrangement”.
It’s likely that everything, from the top to the bottom and even beyond, will be scrutinised if you lose ten of your thirteen games during an IPL season. Aakash Chopra wants seven players released, while Sanjay Bangar wants MS Dhoni to say “enough” as the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) attempt to complete their commitments for the IPL 2025 season and start over.
“I think at 43 it’s very tough to play in that competitive environment. When you’re 43, why this competitive environment, even if you go and play some local cricket, you will find how tough it is on the body as well,” Bangar said in response to the question that has been asked pretty much every IPL season of late.
“It all boils down to MS, but if I was MS, I would say ‘enough’. ‘Okay, I have played whatever I wanted to play, I have looked after the interest of the franchise’, if there’s any, if that was the motivation. But, you know, you move on.
“By you being there, if you’re thinking that the transition will happen fast, there’s never an ideal time to pick. So you might as well [make] peace with the fact that, ‘okay, even if I leave now, the franchise will develop on its own; it will take a year longer, but I’m not going to be here for the entire cycle’. That’s how I would look at MS’ position if I was in that position.”
Similar to Chopra, CSK coach Stephen Fleming stated during the press conference following the defeat to RR that the squad was “patching innings up” at this time and that the batting order was far from what they had desired.
“Our order is not right at this stage,” Fleming said. “That’s something that we are always looking to rejig. We’ve got some strong ideas for next year so that all facets are covered. But that hasn’t been possible this year because [of] lack of runs at the top. A lot of the batting positions are determined by how well a start we have, and then guys can fall into line. So we haven’t had that, so we’ve been just patching innings up, really, rather than constructing good innings.”