Every IPL Team plays it’s opponent twice in the competition, once at home ground and once away. Each Team tries its best to make the maximum use of home conditions and strategies accordingly. Winning most home matches and trying best for a few away wins have been a standard strategy in the IPL. In this series, we look at each team and its relationship with its home venue and its likely strategy this year.
Painted Yellow! That is the best description of Chennai Super Kings’ home ground, the MA Chidambaram Stadium. Over the years, Chennai Fan army has shown up in numbers to support their most favorite cricketing stars. After missing their beloved team for the last two years, the fans are expected to turn up in huge numbers. The Chepauk Stadium will be buzzing once more with the IPL chants this season.
Established in 1914, the MA Chidambaram Stadium has witnessed some very nail-biting finishes. The reputed stadium located in one of the homes of Indian cricket hosted the first-ever Ranji Trophy match in 1934. The stadium also was the venue for the second-ever tied Test between India-Australia in 1986 and India’s first ever Test match win against England in 1952. What once felt like a boiling furnace, Chepauk is a breezy and cool stadium after the renovations in 2009.
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CSK Record at the Home Venue (All Seasons)
| Year | Played | Win | Loss | Win % |
| 2008 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 43 |
| 2010 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 57 |
| 2011 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 100 |
| 2012 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 63 |
| 2013 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 75 |
| 2014 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 80 |
| 2015 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 86 |
Despite ending up as one of the finalists in the inaugural IPL season, Chennai Super Kings won only three out of their seven home matches. This remains their worst performance in terms of home-win matches. The 2008 IPL was the only season where Chennai lost more matches than they won at home.
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It did not take long for CSK to figure out the winning methods though. From the second season itself, they found the formula to start winning on the home tracks. In 2011, they came out with the perfect score – seven out of seven wins at home. Out of seven, only one match was won by a close margin of two runs against KKR, all others were won by a healthy margin. In their last IPL season of 2015, they won six out of seven matches at home.
Pitch Conditions:
Chennai track is famous for its spinning properties. Over the years, Chennai has made the best use of this spinning track. The pitch typically gets lower and slower as the match progresses. The ideal bowlers here are those who can take the pace off the ball. Even 160-170 is a very good total on this ground.
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For IPL 2018
In Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, Chennai possessed two of the best Indian spinners to bowl at Chepauk. They often played with three spinners on this track as well. This year, they do not have Ashwin but India’s most successful Off-spinner (as of now) Harbhajan Singh in the squad. Karn Sharma is also on reserve.
This year CSK possesses a good pace battery also but their role is likely to be limited.
