Ex-India star lashes out at CSK for worst ever IPL start

Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the defending champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL) title, incurred their worst ever start to their IPL season as they lost their first three matches of the 15th season of the tournament.

Their third defeat came at the Brabourne Stadium on Sunday against Punjab Kings as they slipped towards the bottom of the points table. Following the loss, former India cricketer Irfan Pathan lashed out at the team for their poor show.

Chennai lost to Kolkata Knight Riders in the season opener at the Wankhede Stadium last month by 6 wickets. Lucknow Super Giants then chased down a mighty 211 against the four-time IPL winners last week before Chennai lost by 54 runs against Punjab Kings on Sunday. They now stand ninth in the points table with a net run rate of – 1.251.

Following the loss, Irfan took to Twitter to opine that CSK cannot afford to lose three matches in a row because they are missing their star pacer Deepak Chahar.

“You can’t just be missing one player (Deepak) and lose three in a row. The TEAM needs to step up #CSK,” he tweeted.

CSK shelled out a whopping ₹14 crore to buy back Chahar at the mega auction in Bengaluru in February, but the India pacer suffered a quadriceps injury during the final T20 match against West Indies in Kolkata that match and was subsequently ruled out of half the season.

Chahar has been CSK’s main weapon in the powerplay overs where the team has significantly struggled in the three matches.

In his absence, the team has had to be content with uncapped pacers in Mukesh Choudhary and Tushar Deshpande and even handed the ball to Shivam Dube in the death overs with all of them proving costly.

Chennai now have a four-day break before the take in Sunrisers Hyderabad in Navi Mumbai on April 9.