Chennai Super Kings captain Ruturaj Gaikwad has levelled an all-time unwanted captaincy record in the history of the Indian Premier League during the toss ceremony in the Punjab Kings vs Chennai Super Kings clash at HPCA Dharamsala. Gaikwad's CSK were asked to bat first after PBKS skipper Sam Curran won the toss in the first match of the season at the picturesque venue.
While CSK were forced to make an unforced change to their Playing XI due to the unavailability of Mustafizur Rahman, Gaikwad has equalled an unwanted record in the history of the tournament. His love affair with losing the tosses has continued even in the game against PBKS. Gaikwad has now equalled the record of most tosses lost in the first 11 matches of an IPL.
The toss-loss against PBKS was the tenth instance of Gaikwad losing the flip-of-the-coin in the ongoing season of the tournament. He levelled the record earlier held by only Sanju Samson, who lost 10 tosses as well in Rajasthan Royals' first 10 games of the season.
Most tosses lost in the first 11 games of an IPL season
10 - RR in 2022
10 - CSK in 2024
9 - MI in 2011
9 - DC in 2013
Notably after winning the toss against CSK, Curran wanted to chase to have a better look at the surface. "We're going to bowl. Day game, try and see how it plays and chase it down. We've got the same team. We've had two really good wins with the same team. Conditions should be fairly even throughout, it's about batting, bowling and fielding well," Curran, who is the stand-in skipper in the absence of Shikhar Dhawan, said at the toss.
"We've just stuck to our process and doing little things right. We don't look at the track record of the opposition, we focus on ourselves and see what we can do right. This season there have been a lot of injuries, flus and forced changes so we've had to tinker with our team. I'd say losing 10 tosses but winning 5 games is a positive. Santner comes in place of Fizz," Gaikwad said after losing yet another toss.
