With Deepak Chahar not in his best rhythm, Ben Stokes not completely fit to bowl four overs, and the inexperience of Tushar Deshpande and Rajvardhan Hangargekar at this level, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) is having huge concerns with their pace attack. It was evident in the way they have gone about in their first couple of games in IPL 2023. They failed to defend 178 in their opening game against Gujarat Titans.

However, if it wasn’t for spinners Moeen Ali and Mitchell Santner then CSK would have ended up on the losing side even after muscling 217 in their second match against the Lucknow Super Giants. In the 11 overs that the CSK fast bowlers bowled against LSG in front of their home crowd at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Monday, they conceded 142 runs for just two wickets.

One might argue that there was very little for the seamers on the batting pitch at Chepauk but the CSK pacers were way off target. But what would give MS Dhoni and CSK management sleepless nights is the number of extras conceded by them.

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CSK fast bowlers have bowled 16 wides and five no-balls in just two matches. Dhoni, who generally doesn’t give away much, was visibly upset with the indiscipline of his medium pacers on Monday. The legendary cricketer, albeit jokingly, said the CSK bowlers will have to ‘play under a new captain’ if they don’t stop bowling wides and no-balls. 

Former West Indies pacer Ian Bishop and Sunil Gavaskar were in the commentary box when Tushar Deshpande bowled a no-ball in the last over. Bishop was quick to reveal that Dhoni had termed giving extras as ‘unacceptable’ after their defeat to GT.

Ian Bishop said, “We spoke to Dhoni after the last match. he said (Rajvardhan) Hangargekar did exceptionally well but no-balls are unacceptable. He said in the (post-match) interview. ” Gavaskar suggested keeping some sort of penalty for those bowl wides and no-balls in the match. “Maybe they should have some sort of penalty within the team,” he said.

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Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, and Moeen Ali were the stars for CSK in their 12-run victory against CSK. Playing their first match in front of their home ground in nearly four years, CSK put on a bating spectacle for their fans. Gaikwad slammed his second successive fifty and shared 110 runs for the opening wicket with Conway (47 off 29) as CSK posted a commanding 217 for 7 after being sent into bat.