Published By: Saksham Mishra

Secret sauce of CSK's IPL success - core group, Mahi magic and more

Chennai Super Kings have been the most consistent franchise of the Indian Premier League, making it to the playoffs in all the 10 editions that they have been a part of.

CSK have won three IPL titles in 2010, 2011 and 2018 and have always been a force to be reckoned with in the tournament. Here's listing the reasons for their repeated success in the IPL:

Dhoni's captaincy In any sport, the role of the captain is significant. In T20 cricket, given how tactically rich the format of the game is, captaincy becomes even more important. One can have as many analysts and coaches as he or she wants but the decisions which are to be taken in the middle and at the spur of the moment come through instinct only. And this instinct is nurtured over the years.

With his experience complementing natural ability, Dhoni has been pitch perfect in making key decisions, whether conventional or unconventional, and has made the sum of the team's parts greater than the whole.

This is precisely why after captaining in 174 IPL matches, Dhoni has the best win percentage (59.8%) among the current captains after a cutoff of 30 matches.

Backing non-stars An extension of the above pointer is that the CSK team management backs their players. The likes of Ravichandran Ashwin were not big names when they were first given an opportunity at CSK, but with consistent opportunities, the players began to come good and later represented India successfully.

Similarly, players like Ishwar Pandey, Manpreet Gony and Sudeep Tyagi were turned from ordinary players to match-winners by the franchise.

Core group It is not a fluke that Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings are two of the most successful teams in the Indian Premier League. The primary reason for their success is that they have a core group of players around whom they build their team.

For Chennai, MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Shane Watson and Dwayne Bravo have been those players.

Minimal interference Unlike some franchises whose owners want to be a part of the decision-making process, there is almost no interference that comes in the way of MS Dhoni and head coach Stephen Fleming at CSK. This allows them to declutter a lot of things.

The duo backs their instinct and basic cricket wisdom to take decisions, which has done wonders for the franchise over the years.