IPL: Chennai Super Kings' All-time Best XI
The Chennai Super Kings is the No 1 team in IPL on all counts. Their success could be attributed to so many factors like the leadership of Dhoni, the presence of strong local talent and the franchise’s strategy to always keep the core of the team intact.
CSK has also been fortunate to select long-lasting players in MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina in the very first season itself and to retain them forever subsequently.
The retention fee spent on these great players over the years has been comparatively lower than their market value at various point in time.
In the past, CSK had been represented by legends like Matthew Hayden, Muttiah Muralitharan, and Brendon McCullum. Several exceptionally talented players had played their part in CSK being successful over a period of time.
In this article, an attempt is made to select the all-time best playing XI of CSK. To be fair to the longevity of the players with CSK, only players who have played in 25 or more matches for CSK have been considered for selection.
That rules out current players like Shane Watson, Ambati Rayadu and Kedar Jadhav. The Players’ statistics referred to in this article relates to the performances of the players for CSK alone.
Openers
Murali Vijay
Matches – 65, Innings – 65, Runs – 1612, Avg – 26, SR – 128
Murali Vijay first represented CSK in IPL 2009. After a poor start in his debut year, Vijay had been a consistent performer for CSK for the next four years.
Vijay was the only player to have scored two IPL hundreds for CSK before Shane Watson equaled that rare feat last year.
During his hay days, Vijay had forged a formidable opening partnership with Mike Hussey. Vijay’s transformation from a technically correct Test opener to an aggressive T20 opener happened at CSK when he learned to muscle the bowlers during the powerplay.
Though Vijay’s tenure at CSK did not make him a successful International player in white ball cricket, it did help in enhancing his range of strokes and in improving his fielding skills.
Murali Vijay is the opener in this team.
Michael Hussey
Matches – 50, Innings – 49, Runs – 1768, Avg – 42, SR – 124
Mike Hussey made his debut for CSK in the inaugural season of IPL 2008. In his very first match for CSK, Hussey smashed 116 off 54 balls at a strike rate of 215.
On national duty, Hussey could not play many matches for CSK in 2009 and 2010. In the next three years, Hussey scored 1486 runs for CSK. With 733 runs, he was the orange cap holder in IPL 2013.
Vijay and Hussey have been one of the most successful opening pairs in IPL history having scored more than 1000 runs together at an average of 41 with the highest partnership of 159.
For CSK, so many overseas players have played the role of the opener successfully. Matthew Hayden, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Smith, and Faf de Plessis, to name a few.
Out of all these players, Michael Hussey was the most consistent overseas opener for CSK. Besides, his partnership with Murali Vijay had won many a match for CSK. Hence, Mike Hussey is the second opener in this team.