Released players: Kedar Jadhav, Piyush Chawla, Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Monu Singh, Shane Watson (retired)
Retained Players: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, KM Asif, Deepak Chahar, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, N Jagadeesan, Karn Sharma, Lungi Ngidi, Mitchell Santner, Ravindra Jadeja, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shardul Thakur, Sam Curran, Josh Hazelwood, R Sai Kishore.
Remaining purse: 22.9 crore.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have been one of the most successful teams in the history of IPL. Won trophy 3 times in the years 2010, 2011 and 2018. However, 2020 proved to be a very dismal season for the men in yellow as they failed to make it to the playoff stage for the first time in the history.
They will be going into the auction with a healthy purse of 22.9 cr. Here are probable 3 players CSK can target in this IPL auction:
Steve Smith
Steve Smith has been released by Rajasthan Royals this year which makes him one of the hot buys for CSK in the auction. The franchise can spend healthy amount on him given the purse balance which CSK have with them.
If they manage to buy Smith, then it gives them plenty of options as Faf Du Plessis can open with either Ambati Rayudu or Ruturaj Gaikwad.
Whereas Suresh Raina can come in at number 3 position in the batting line up followed by Smith at number four. This will provide a great batting line up given the fact that CSK bat very deep with MSD and Jadeja.
Dawid Malan,
The English left-handed sensational batsman will surely be up for grabs by many franchises going into the auction. Malan has been very consistent with the bat in the past few years. Currently he is also the top ranked ICC T20I batsman in the world. Malan is a very versatile batsman who can bat at any place which gives a lot of value to the team. CSK would definitely be eying to crab this English batsman.
Glenn Maxwell
Maxwell was released by KXIP ahead of the IPL auction as it was expected due to his low 2020 performance. But, seeing his match winning skills, he will be one of the top names on the card for this year.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are expected to engage in a bidding war for the Australian all-rounder given his three -dimensional skills. Maxwell can provide the finishing touch for CSK coming in at number five or six.
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Chennai struggled to chase down targets last season due to their slow middle and lower middle order batting, because of the absence of an explosive lower middle batsmen who could finish off games with ease. With Maxwell coming into the Chennai squad, MS Dhoni can play his natural game and and take some time to settle.
The performance of CSK in last year IPL has raised a lot of eyebrows on the team selection. They would be banking a lot on these players to revive their fortunes and get back to winning ways.