Chennai Super Kings is a Chennai-based franchise in the Indian Premier League which was one of the eight initial teams that played in the competition in its first edition in 2008. Currently the team is captained by MS Dhoni and has Stephen Fleming as their coach.
History
Chennai Super Kings are three-time champions at the IPL and have also featured in the knockouts/playoffs in all the editions of the tournament they have participated in. The side has won the Champions League T20 in 2010 and 2014 before the competition became defunct.
Bought at the team auction in 2007 for a price of $91 million, it was the fourth-most costly franchise. N. Srinivasan, who is the owner of India Cements also owns the Super Kings while MS Dhoni has led the side in all seasons of the tournament. They finished runner-up in the first edition of the tournament in 2008 and won their first title in 2010 before successfully defending their title in 2011.
The team returned in 2018 and in a fairy-tale resumption, went on to defeated the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final to win their third title.
| Country |
India
|
| City | Chennai |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Ground | M. A. Chidambaram Stadium |
| Captain | Mahendra Singh Dhoni |
| Coach | Stephen Fleming |
| Website | chennaisuperkings.com |
| Follow This Team | |
The Super Kings were suspended from the competition in 2016 and 2017 after Gurunath Meiyappan, the son-in-law of Srinivasan, was found to have bet on IPL matches despite being the Team Principal of the team.
Previous Season Record
Here’s the season by season highlights of Chennai Super Kings.
2008
Chennai Super Kings began their IPL campaign with the 2008 season where they finished runner-up to the Rajasthan Royals. It was a humdinger of a final where the Royals chased down a score of 164 off the final ball of the game.
Earlier in the group stage of the tournament, the Super Kings won eight of their 14 games to finish third and then crushed the Kings XI Punjab in the semifinals by nine wickets to move into the title-decider. This was also the only edition in which Kepler Wessels was the coach.
2009
Stephen Fleming, who had featured for the Super Kings in the first season, retired from the game and took over the coaching role from Wessels.
The Super Kings finished second in the points table, improving on their previous season’s position, with 17 points from 14 games. However, they lost to the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the semifinal after collapsing from 61/0 in the 7th over to 146/5 in their 20 overs.
2010
Much like in the first season, the Super Kings finished third in the group stages of the competition with seven wins from 14 games. In fact, there was a four-way tie for the third and fourth spot as Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata all ended with 14 points.
This was after Dhoni led the Super Kings to a solid win over Punjab in their final league game to help them qualify at the third spot due to a better net run-rate. They went on to defeat Deccan Chargers in the semifinal and then trounced Mumbai Indians in the final to lift their first IPL win.
2011
Played on the heels of an Indian World Cup win under Dhoni, Chennai Super Kings managed to defend their title by crushing Bangalore in the final. This was also the first season in which a total of 10 teams played the IPL and the Super Kings finished second in the group stage with nine wins from 14 games.
After defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first Qualifier, they went on to brush the same side aside with aplomb to lift the title for the second time in a row.
2012
The Chennai Super Kings made it to their third final in a row in 2012 - and fourth overall - and looked like they were the favourites to win it when they hammered 190/3 against the Kolkata Knight Riders in the grand finale.
However, they were stunned by the surprise prowess of the last-minute inclusion of Manvinder Bisla who smashed 89 off 48 to help the Knight Riders snatch their first title.
Earlier they had beaten Mumbai Indians in the Eliminator before crushing Delhi Daredevils in the second Qualifier to make it to the final.
2013
Chennai finished at the top of the points table during the league stage with 11 wins from 16 matches, edging out the Mumbai Indians on net run-rate. Then they routed the Mumbai Indians by 48 runs in the first Qualifier to make it to final where they faced the same opponent.
Mumbai, who had never won an IPL title till then, turned things around for themselves after overcoming a slow start to compile 148/9 in their 20 overs. In turn, Lasith Malinga, Mitchell Johnson and Harbhajan Singh combined to restrict Chennai to 125 and win the title.
This was Chennai’s fourth final in a row and third defeat in finals.
2014
Again led by Dhoni, the Super Kings started off brilliantly by winning five of their first six matches, but lost momentum and ended up finishing third in the points table. They still qualified for the playoffs and defeated Mumbai Indians in the Eliminator but lost to the Kings XI Punjab in the second Qualifier.
This was only the second time since inception Chennai Super Kings hadn’t made the title-decider.
2015
Stung from not having made the final the previous season, the Super Kings rallied around Brendon McCullum’s 436 runs and Dwayne Bravo’s fine all-round showing which saw him score nearly 400 runs and pick up 26 wickets.
They finished top of the table going into the playoffs as a result and while they lost to the Mumbai Indians in the first Qualifier, Chennai defeated the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the second Qualifier to enter the final. Again.
In the final, they were relegated to another defeat at the hands of Mumbai Indians, who clinched their second title to level with the Super Kings on the number of tournament wins.
2016-2017
Chennai Super Kings, along with Rajasthan Royals were suspended from playing as mentioned above. The IPL Governing Council brought in the Gujarat Lions and Pune Warriors India to play in place of them.
2018
In what turned out to be a fairy-tale return to the IPL, the MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings won their third title. Finishing second on the points table, tied on 18 points with Sunrisers Hyderabad, they then beat Hyderabad in the first Qualifier to make it to the final.
In the final, the Sunrisers scored 178/6 from their 20 overs but a thundering Shane Watson century helped the Super Kings glide to the total with nine balls to spare.
2019
It could well have been their fourth title win. Instead, arch-rivals Mumbai Indians defeated the Chennai Super Kings in one of the best finals of all time to register their fourth IPL victory, defending a lowly score of 149/8 by one run.
Needing two to win from the final ball, Lasith Malinga trapped Shardul Thakur out lbw to help prevent the Super Kings from running away with the title.
