Former New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris feels that Chennai Super Kings are in deep water after they announced their retention list for the IPL 2021 auction expected to be held next month. CSK released six players - Kedar Jadhav, Harbhajan Singh, Shane Watson, Piyush Chawla, Murali Vijay and Monu Singh - but Styris feels that CSK have a lot of work to do especially in the auction with the hope of roping in young players into the squad.
With the Dad's Army, CSK won the title in 2018 and fell short by a run in the final the following year, the strategy of holding back the more experienced players in the squad over young talents for another season saw them finish seventh in the points table after eight defeats. In 11 years of their participation, CSK failed to reach the playoffs for the first time ever.
“I think their hands are tied a little bit. In reality, the storyline for the last three years has been about old is gold and ageing side that CSK has but that was always going to come back and bite them really and that reason for that is you still need the younger generation coming through. MS Dhoni mentioned that. He spoke about handing it over to the next generation. Where that comes from, I don't know,” Styris told Star Sports.
Ahead of the 2021 season, CSK released six players and retained the core players, five of which, including captain MS Dhoni, are well above 33 and lack cricketing exposure over the last 12 months. In the mini-auction, they will be entering with INR 22.9 crore with eight slots to fill, of which one will be an overseas spot.
“I think they are in big trouble. The players they released were expected to be the older players in the squad. I think a couple are there but who are the backbones? Where is that spine coming from for CSK? When you look at that top order, they're not playing a lot of cricket, so I think CSK have a lot of work ahead of them. The auction is a big part of that, not only for this year but next too,” Styris added.
