On Friday, April 25, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) suffered their seventh loss in the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) 2025 season. Once more, they were defeated at their stronghold, Chepauk. Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) broke through the citadel this time, using some tenacious cricket to silence the fervent CSK supporters at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
With five wickets and eight balls remaining, SRH managed to chase down a target of 155 runs. Following the heartbreaking loss, MS Dhoni acknowledged that CSK’s batting performance in the first innings fell short by 15–20 runs.
In addition to the fact that the track was marginally better in the first innings and that 157 wasn’t a reasonable score, I believe we kept losing wickets. It was a touch two-paced and not turning much, but nothing unusual. Yes, there was some assistance in the second inning. After the defeat, MS Dhoni remarked, “Our spinners were excellent and bowled in the right places, but we fell short by 15 to 20 runs.”
We needed that in the middle order, and I believe Dewald Brevis batted pretty effectively. You can either select the proper spots or employ good batsmanship when the spinners come in, but we want to get better at that because middle overs are so important,” he continued.
On Friday, Pat Cummins chose to bowl first after winning the toss. Shaik Rasheed was sent packing by Mohammed Shami’s opening ball of the game. At number three, Sam Curran batted but was ineffective.
With just 47 runs scored, CSK lost three wickets as Ayush Mhatre played another fast-paced knock before being removed in the final over of the powerplay.
Dewald Brevis, making his CSK debut, hit a daring knock of 42 off 25 balls, but Ravindra Jadeja ruined a calm start. The cheap dismissal of players like Shivam Dube and MS Dhoni caused the bottom middle-order to struggle. CSK was bowled out for 154 in 19.5 overs after Deepak Hooda made a 21-ball 22.
On a difficult surface, the visitors batted conservatively. Despite losing five wickets, they managed to win by five wickets with eight balls remaining with to the gutsy efforts of Ishan Kishan (44), Kamindu Mendis (32*), and Nitish Kumar Reddy (19*).
When most of the team’s players are struggling, it might be challenging to turn things around in a competition like the IPL, according to the veteran wicketkeeper-batter.
“It is good to fill in the gaps in one or two areas in a tournament like this, but it becomes very challenging if most of your guys are struggling. Because you have to make some adjustments, but if most of the players are performing well, you give them a few more games, and if not, you go on to the next one,” the CSK captain continued.
But you can’t just keep going, so you have to change if four of them aren’t performing at the same moment. The game has shifted because we are not scoring enough runs, which is crucial at the moment. “Assess the situation and then try to put the runs on the board,” he said, noting that it is not usually 180–200.
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