Chennai Super Kings have always been one of those teams that somehow find a way. Even in bad years, they scrape through, win a close game when it matters, and end up in the top four. That has been the CSK story for over a decade. But IPL 2026 was different, and not in a good way.
For the third time in a row since 2024, CSK failed to make the playoffs. They finished 7th with just 6 wins from 14 games. They dropped catches, leaked runs, lost key players to injuries, and could not win when it mattered most. It was, to put it simply, another season where CSK looked like a team in transition, one that has not quite figured out its next chapter yet.
So what really went wrong? And what, if anything, went right? Let us break it all down.
A Season That Fell Apart at the Worst Time
To be fair to CSK, they were not dead and buried early. After 11 games, they had won 6 and still had a genuine shot at the playoffs. Beat two out of three, and they were through. Simple math. But they lost all three, to Lucknow, Sunrisers Hyderabad, and finally Gujarat Titans by a massive 89 runs. Three games, zero wins, tournament over.
That final game against GT on May 21 in Ahmedabad summed up their season. Chasing 229, CSK were bowled out for a lot less. The batting order, which had shown signs of life earlier in the season, just collapsed when the pressure was at its highest. This is not just bad luck, it is a pattern that has been repeating itself over the last three years.
The MS Dhoni Question, And Why It Is Not Simple
Let us address the elephant in the room first. MS Dhoni did not play a single game this season. Reports suggested he was fit enough to play but chose not to, reportedly not wanting to upset the balance of the side. Whatever the reason, his absence was felt, but perhaps not in the way most people expected.
Here is the honest truth: CSK actually looked more like a proper team without him. For years, Dhoni at the back end of the order was a security blanket. But it also meant the team was slightly built around his presence. This season, without him, younger players had to take more responsibility. And many of them did step up.
So in a strange way, CSK not having Dhoni around helped them figure out what they actually are as a team going forward. That is not a criticism of Dhoni, it is just the reality of where CSK are in their rebuild.
Sanju Samson: The Best Decision CSK Made
Getting Sanju Samson via a trade from Rajasthan Royals, giving up both Sam Curran and Ravindra Jadeja in return, was a bold call. At the time, many questioned it. Two experienced, reliable players for one? It seemed like a gamble.
It paid off completely.
Samson scored 477 runs this season at an average of 43.36 and a strike rate of 165.62. He also scored two centuries, the only CSK batter to do so. On days when the rest of the batting struggled, Samson almost single-handedly kept them in games. He brought the kind of positive, aggressive batting that CSK’s top order has badly needed for a couple of years now.
Without Samson, CSK’s top three would have looked very thin. He was not just their best batter, he was their most important player by some distance.
Gaikwad’s Numbers Tell a Concerning Story
Ruturaj Gaikwad scored 337 runs as captain and opener. On the surface, that looks decent. But dig a little deeper and the problem becomes clear, his strike rate was just 123.44.
For an opener in modern T20 cricket, that is simply not fast enough. Openers set the tone. When your No. 1 batter is taking his time, he is putting extra pressure on every single batter who comes in after him. If Samson is also having a slow start, or gets out early, then suddenly CSK are behind the game with no easy way back.
There were matches where Gaikwad played 30-odd balls for 25-30 runs, and the required run rate just kept climbing. The rest of the batting, Shivam Dube, Kartik Sharma, Ayush Mhatre, all had decent strike rates, but they could not always rescue the situation that Gaikwad’s slow starts had created.
As captain, Gaikwad also has to shoulder some responsibility for the team’s decision-making on the field. How do you leave out Akeal Hosein, a man who took 4 for 17, from the playing XI in must-win games? That is a question that needs a proper answer.
The Bowling Was a Mess, and Injuries Made It Worse
CSK’s bowling attack this season was, more often than not, their biggest weakness. And to be fair, injuries had a huge role to play in that.
Nathan Ellis missed the entire season. Dhoni too was absent throughout. Khaleel Ahmed played just five matches before getting injured. Ramakrishna Ghosh was ruled out in his very first IPL game. Dewald Brevis missed the first three matches. Ayush Mhatre suffered a hamstring injury after six games. And then, perhaps the biggest blow of all, Jamie Overton, who had been fantastic, got injured after 10 games.
Every time CSK seemed to find something that worked, an injury knocked it down. That kind of bad luck is brutal in a short-format tournament like the IPL, where you have no time to recover.
But injuries alone do not explain the bowling issues. Anshul Kamboj picked up 21 wickets, the most for CSK this season. But his economy rate was 10.52. In one match against Lucknow, he went for 0 for 63 in just 2.4 overs. That is extraordinary, and not in a good way. You can accept wickets at a high average if the bowler is being clever or attacking. But leaking 10-plus runs per over regularly is just not acceptable at this level, especially in a middle or death bowling role.
An economy of 10.52 means every over Kamboj bowled cost CSK 10 runs on average. Multiply that across 14 games, and you start to understand why their totals and targets never looked safe enough.
Dropped Catches, The Invisible Problem
CSK reportedly dropped around 20 catches across the season. That number, if accurate, is shocking.
One particular moment stood out: against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Spencer Johnson dropped Heinrich Klaasen early in his innings. Klaasen went on to score 47 off 26 balls. CSK were chasing 181 and lost by 10 runs. Had that catch been taken, the match could have gone completely differently.
Dropped catches do not show up in scorecards. They do not get talked about as much as batting failures or bowling disasters. But over a 14-game season, 20 dropped catches is the difference between winning and losing several matches. It is the kind of thing that separates average fielding sides from great ones, and CSK, this season, were firmly in the average category.
The Bright Spots That Give Hope
Despite all the problems, there were real positives in this CSK season.
Kartik Sharma, despite coming in with a big price tag and the pressure that comes with it, scored 295 runs at a decent strike rate of 136. In his first IPL season, that is an excellent return. He looked composed and confident, not a player weighed down by expectations.
Young Ayush Mhatre looked sharp in his second season before the injury, scoring 201 runs at a strike rate of 177.87. That kind of hitting at his age is very exciting. Urvil Patel, though he played limited innings, showed with a blazing 65 that he can be the power-hitter CSK have been looking for at the back end of the order.
Jamie Overton was brilliant in his 10 games, 14 wickets at an average of 17.78, and 136 runs at a strike rate of 158 with the bat. He is a genuine match-winner. Same goes for Akeal Hosein, who picked 8 wickets at an economy of just 8.02. Both players should absolutely be retained.
The batting order, by the middle of the season, started to look settled and more solid than CSK have looked in a while. That is a foundation to build on.
Final Verdict: Potential Wasted, But Not All Lost
CSK’s IPL 2026 season was, in many ways, exactly what it looked like, a team in transition, dealing with too many injuries, making a few questionable decisions, and running out of steam at the worst possible time.
The Samson trade was inspired. The young batters showed real signs of growth. The team looked more like a unit capable of surviving without Dhoni. But the bowling was too expensive, the fielding let them down too many times, Gaikwad’s strike rate held them back, and when the big moments came in the last three games, they simply could not deliver.
Three playoff misses in a row is no longer a coincidence or a bad run of luck. It is a signal that something deeper needs to change, in how the team is selected, how it is led, and how it is built for crunch situations.
There is talent here. There is hope here. But talent and hope alone do not win IPL trophies, and CSK know that better than anyone.
Season Rating: 5.5/10
The post CSK IPL 2026 Season Review: MS Dhoni’s Absence, Ruturaj Gaikwad’s Slow Bat & What Went Wrong? appeared first on Sportzcraazy.
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