CSK and Faf du Plessis - A marriage made in IPL heaven

It’s May 2018. The Wankhede Stadium is packed to the rafters as the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and the Sunrisers Hyderabad prepare to battle. The winner of this contest would propel themselves directly into the final, whereas the loser would have another bite at the cherry.

For a large chunk of the first innings, CSK is the team in the ascendancy. They restrict SRH to 139 and on a relatively decent batting surface, seem to have done enough to put the game beyond doubt. SRH, though, have other ideas.

They rock CSK and blow the Yellow Army away. They pick three wickets in the Power Play, and follow it up with MS Dhoni’s scalp in the 8th over. A few overs later, Dwayne Bravo and Ravindra Jadeja depart too, leaving CSK tottering at 62/6 after 12.3 overs.

While the carnage is unfolding, a burly batter is watching at the other end. He hasn’t been playing regularly in the 2018 season and seems to be well past his prime. The first few balls he faces is not played out very convincingly either.

A few observant fans notice that he holds his bat in a weird manner – with his hands so apart that you could have another pair of paws in between. He continues struggling for rhythm and when the wickets fall at the other end, he heaves a sigh of disbelief.

Those who haven’t watched a lot of CSK’s cricket deliver their verdict. They have observed this batter huff and puff for singles and they have seemingly deciphered why he was not in the team all along.

A couple of rows away, though, sits an ardent CSK follower – a follower who has seen the deepest nadirs they have been through and the highest crests they have scaled thereafter. He listens to these assessments and for a minute, he partly agrees. After all, not many teams win after being reduced to 62/6.

But he still has hope. Not just because CSK have pulled several victories out of the fire, but because he knows that Faf du Plessis – the batter many have already written off, will have the final say in clutch moments.

And then, just like he had imagined, everything starts clicking. du Plessis starts portraying his entire repertoire of strokes and there is, after a long hiatus, some belief among those clad in yellow at the Wankhede Stadium.

The South African almost single-handedly takes his team past the finish line, and reiterates why he is regarded so highly in the CSK ecosystem. There isn’t a lot of celebration after his heroics. He quietly soaks in the applause and embraces his teammates.

Again, the crowd is amazed at how someone, who has arguably played the innings of the IPL season, can be so equanimous. Most, though, understand that that is because du Plessis has done it so many times that such virtuoso displays no longer require a celebration. Instead, they have become the recurring theme.

On pure numbers, du Plessis might not qualify as one of the greatest batters to have ever graced the IPL. 2934 runs across 100 games is significant but it isn’t a lot as compared to some of his more illustrious peers. An average of 34.94 and a strike rate of 131.08 doesn’t strike out either.

Chennai will miss du Plessis' services in IPL 2022 (Pic Credits: The Quint)

Faf du Plessis was often CSK's crisis man

What the stats don’t tell is how many times du Plessis has been on hand to avert a prospective crisis. He was there in 2018, and he was also CSK’s guiding light in the 2021 IPL final against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Both were occasions that could have overawed the best of cricketers. du Plessis, though, barely flinched. If anything, he might have even hoped for him to be thrown to the wolves so that he could return and lead the pack. That, in a microcosm, defines du Plessis’ legacy.

Over the years, there have been countless cricketers who have made merry when the sun has shined. Not many, however, have been able to single-handedly convert dreary and murky days into beautiful sunsets. du Plessis has arguably been the anomaly – an anomaly that CSK identified early and kept backing, until they were forced to let him go prior to the 2022 IPL auction.

In many ways, the CSK-du Plessis marriage was made in IPL heaven. CSK have, for those unaware, been a team that prides itself on coming up trumps in critical situations. They don’t always have the most star-studded side. Yet, they almost always manage to put together a team that challenges for top honours.

du Plessis is very similar. He may not have as many shots as AB de Villiers and he certainly doesn’t hit as many sixes as a prime David Miller did. He also doesn’t get off to as many brisk starts as Quinton de Kock.

What he can do, though, is morph into each of the aforementioned when the chips are down – something that most cricketers aren’t able to do. And that, as cricketers (both current and past) would testify, is what distinguishes good and talented cricketers from the great players.

This, by the way, doesn’t imply that du Plessis wasn’t talented. He didn’t get that many runs without having talent. It’s just that his greatest asset doesn’t really stand out and isn’t conventional – much like CSK. But you know that when a puzzle needed to be solved at CSK, du Plessis was almost always the answer the franchise craved.

Which brings us to how CSK will cope without the South African in the 2022 iteration of the IPL. They have brought Devon Conway on board and many experts have touted him to be a like-for-like replacement. There is a bit of truth to it too. That, though, is where the catch lies.

Conway can be as good as du Plessis, make no mistake about it. But he, or for that matter any cricketer, can never be du Plessis. And, there is no shame at all in that.

The South African will remain a cricketer who defined everything CSK stood for – the character, the ability to not worry about looking ugly, the relishing of tough situations, the propensity to score when no one gives him a chance and of course, the tendency to believe in yourself to such an extent that the universe ultimately conspires to make things right.

Being aesthetically pleasing wasn’t du Plessis’ forte. But he got the job done. Not once, not twice but countless times - 2018, 2021 and the list could go on forever. He may still do that for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the years to come, for all we know.

But a part of his soul will eternally live on at CSK, even making the franchise believe that the sheer number of runs don’t matter as much as when you get them. And on that front, oh, he was almost incomparable.