IPL 2018: 3 teams that lack squad depth

There have been instances of teams in the past who struggled to gain momentum back after losing one of their mainstay players to injury, national call-up, or other reasons in the IPL.

Such circumstances are unpredictable, on account of which the franchises aim to secure replacements for their mainstream players beforehand to prevent their team from suffering during the tournament. However, some of them fail to do so.

Let's have a look at three teams with the weakest bench-strength ahead of the 2018 edition of the IPL:

#3 Chennai Super Kings

First Choice Playing XI: Faf du Plessis, Shane Watson, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni (c)(wk), Kedar Jadhav, Dwayne Bravo, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Lungi Ngidi, Shardul Thakur

Batting: The batsmen in reserve for CSK are Murali Vijay and Sam Billings (wk), who aren't established figures in their respective international limited-overs teams. Vijay, who plays only Tests for India, has been out of touch of late while Billings usually warms the benches for England. The other options are rookies like Dhruv Shorey & N Jagadeesan, who might not be the go-to men at the IPL level.

Bowling: Do they have options to replace Dwayne Bravo and co. if the unfortunate happens? CSK have Mark Wood, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif to turn to but lack an experienced & genuine T20 specialist, who can instantly pick things up in the middle of the tournament.

All-rounder: The Dhoni-led side have some key all-rounders like Bravo, Watson & Jadeja but all of them are likely to feature in the eleven. The Kiwi all-rounder, Mitchell Santner's injury has added to their concerns, with a replacement yet to be announced.