Overseas players of Chennai Super Kings who might not feature in the initial playing XI

Three-time IPL champions Chennai Super Kings will try to go one step ahead in the upcoming season after ending up as runners-up in the 2019 season. After serving a ban for two years, the men in yellow made a roaring comeback in the 2018 season, where they ended up as champions beating Sunrisers Hyderabad in the finals.

The 2019 finale was heart-breaking for them as they lost the game by the narrowest of margins, a one-run loss to Mumbai Indians. Chennai Super Kings is a team that has a mix of veterans aided by budding youngsters. In the recently concluded auctions, the team management invested in bowlers with the likes of Sam Curran, Josh Hazlewood, Piyush Chawla being drafted into the squad. The team looks balanced in all the departments and is certainly among the hot favourites to win the tournament for the 4th time. While skipper MS Dhoni is in the twilight stages of his career, this season might well turn out to be his final season of the Indian Premier League.

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While CSK looks packed with a pool of talented overseas players, there might be a couple of players who might warm the bench in the initial stages. In this article, we look at 2 overseas players, who might not feature in the initial playing XI.

Mitchell Santner

The talented Kiwi all-rounder was drafted in the Chennai Super Kings in the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League. His heroics with both bat and ball for his national side made the selectors vouch for him the 2018 auctions. Despite being selected into the squad, the Kiwi all-rounder could only take part in 4 games.

In the 4 games he played, Santner picked up 4 wickets at an average of 23.50. His best figures were 2/13 against Mumbai Indians. With the likes of established spinners such as Harbhajan Singh, Imran Tahir, Ravindra Jadeja, Karn Sharma, and Piyush Chawla in the squad, it would be tough for the left-arm spinner to find a spot in the starting line-up at the beginning of the season.

Josh Hazlewood

Josh Hazlewood is the latest addition to the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) squad. The 29-year-old, Australian fast bowler is currently playing for Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League and is eyeing a return into the Australian squad for the limited-overs format for the one-day series against India that commences in the 3rd week of January.

The fast bowler was picked up at his base price of INR 2 crores in the recently concluded IPL auctions. This would be the debut IPL season for the Australian since he opted out of the 2015 season due to national commitments after being bought by the Mumbai Indians.

CSK team is a pool of talented young Indian pace bowlers and well-established overseas stars. While Shardul Thakur and Deepak Chahar will lead the bowling attack, the likes of Dwayne Bravo and Lungi Ngidi will be the overseas pros in the bowling attack. Also, the likes of Sam Curran will fill up the bowling all-rounder quota and this would mean that there is no spot for Josh Hazlewood in the initial playing XI.

There however is always a chance of getting a game due to injuries, pitch conditions and strategies that the Chennai Super Kings may have to deal with and hence, both can easily get into the scheme of things at any point in time during the season.