The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) is a franchise-based Team representing the southern city of Chennai in the prestigious Indian Premier League (IPL) Tournament.
The Team was founded in 2008 with its home ground at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium (also known as Chepauk) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Chennai Super Kings – Franchise Analysis
The Chennai Super Kings had to face a 2-year ban from the IPL beginning July 2015. The suspension was served to the franchise owing to their owners’ alleged involvement in the infamous 2013 IPL betting case. It led CSK not featuring in the IPL during the 2016-2017 seasons. However, the team made an amazing comeback in 2018 and went on to win the Trophy.
The Chennai Super Kings is among the most successful IPL Teams with Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the Captain and Stephen Fleming as the Head Coach.
CSK has been able to win the coveted Trophy thrice in 2010, 2011 and 2018 and commands the best win percentage of 61.28% among all Teams featuring in IPL.
The Chennai Super Kings have the distinction of playing the most Play-Offs (10) and making it to the Final of the IPL (8). They are also the Team that has always qualified for the Play Offstage in each season of the IPL has featured so far. They have also pocked Champions League Twenty20 (no more a Tournament) in 2010 and 2014.
Chennai Super Kings’ brand value is estimated at around Rs.732 crores ($104 million), labeling them as the 2nd most valuable IPL Teams as of 2019, after Mumbai Indians.
Chennai Super Kings Wiki
| Captain | Mahendra Singh Dhoni |
| Vice-Captain | Suresh Raina |
| Chennai Super Kings Jersey | Yellow (Prominent) + Blue + Orange |
| Theme Song | Whistle Podu |
| Major Rival(s) | Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians |
| Logo | An orange lion head on a yellow background with Chennai Super Kings inscribed in blue. |
CSK‘s Administration and Support Staff
| Position | Name |
| Team Director of Cricket Operations | Subramanian Palaniappan |
| Team & Cricket Operations Manager | R Russell |
| Head Coach | Stephen Fleming |
| Batting Coach | Michael Hussey |
| Bowling Coach | Lakshmipathy Balaji |
| Fielding Coach | Rajiv Kumar |
| Bowling Talent Development and Analytics | Lakshmi Narayanan |
| Strength and Conditioning Coach | Gregory King |
| Physiotherapist | Tommy Simsek |
CSK History –
The announcement for the starting of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a twenty20 Tournament was announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in September 2007. In January 2008, the Apex Indian Cricket body revealed the owners of all 8 city-based franchise Teams.
India Cements at $91 million was awarded the ownership of CSK. This made the Chennai Super Kings the 4th most expensive Team in the IPL after Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
The rights of the franchise were acquired by India Cements for 10 years. Being the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of India Cements, the former ICC Chairman, N. Srinivasan was the owner of CSK.
The Chennai Super Kings Ltd was incepted to transfer the franchise to a separate entity after the striking down of the BCCI’s controversial 6:2:4 clauses by the Supreme Court. The provision permitted Board officials to own commercial interest in the IPL and Champions League T20.
Chennai Super Kings Home ground –
The home ground of the Chennai Super Kings is the iconic M.A. Chidambaram Stadium (a.k.a Chepauk) in Chennai city.
The Stadium is named after former President of the BCCI, M.A. Chidambaram. The Stadium is in continuous use despite being the oldest in the country.
With a seating capacity of 50,000, the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) owns and maintains the premises.
During the staging of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, it went through renovations to meet some vital benchmarks of hosting the event. As a result, its capacity was reduced from 50,000 to 36,000.
The home Team here has a win percentage of 67.44%, and the ground is often known as ‘Lions Den’ and ‘Fortress Chepauk’. The 2011 season saw CSK winning all 8 matches being played here, including the final against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (CSK).
CSK became the first Team to win all home games in a season and even the first franchise to have won the Trophy at home.
In 2014, the Chennai Super Kings had to play all their games at Ranchi (home town of Mahendra Singh Dhoni) owing to issues with Government of Tamil Nadu.
In 2018, CSK was able to play only one game here due to protests being staged outside the ground and other parts of the city. Groups were demanding IPL being moved until the Cauvery Management Board was established by the Supreme Court. The remaining matches of CSK were moved to Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune.
CSK Team name, logo design and beyond
CSK was given its name, the Chennai Super Kings to honour the Tamil Empire’s rulers. Super is a word that is commonly used in Tamil Nadu and other southern states. The name of the Team was also derived from the brand of India Cements, the Coromandel King.
The logo of CSK has a roaring lion head in orange with the name of the Team written in blue. The crown is the same as that in the Coromandel King brand. The logo signifies, all in all, youth, fiery spirit, vibrancy and incredible performance direction.
Muthoot Group is CSK’s main sponsor, whose logo is there on the jersey, along with the lion. Reebok had been the kit sponsor until 2014. From 2015 onwards, Spartan, the Australian sports and apparel manufacturer has been doing that.
Chennai Super Kings Sponsors
From 2008 – 2014, Reebok was the kit manufacturers for CSK. After that in 2015 Spartan took over the role of Kit Manufacturer for one year. Seven is now the kit manufacturer for CSK (2018 – 2020).
Shirt Sponsor (Chest) –
2008 to 2015 – Aircel
2018 to 2020 – Muthoot Group
Shirt Sponsor (Back) –
2008 to 2020 – India Cements
Chest Branding –
2008 to 2020 – Gulf Oil
Chennai Super Kings Theme song
The theme song of the Chennai Super Kings is ‘Whistle Podu’, which has been designed by Aaravind-Shankar. It was created in 2008 for YouTube and got famous in 2009 and went on to become the theme song of the Team. The song is a rage in Tamil Nadu and is the symbol of the spirits of the Chennai Super Kings.
The song’s video depicts Dappangutthu, the street dance style, a famous one among many communities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. You should know that it is also a music and folk dance variety that is actively used in Tamil Cinema.
The recordings of Chennai Super Kings’s featuring some of the players while whistling were employed in the music video. The theme song of Chennai Super Kings has gained a cult status among its fans and has become synonymous with CSK.
During the season of IPL in March-May every year, you may see the commercial of CSK with ‘Whistle Podu’ playing out during Ad breaks in their matches on your TVs.
CSK Support and fan following –
The Chennai Super Kings has an astronomical fan following, and they refer themselves as the ‘Yellow Army’. Named as ‘Whistle Podu Army’, the Team also has an Official Fan Club, and it was created in 2016 after Team’s suspension for 2 years.
The reports of some 10,000 fans gathering in the Stadium to watch practice sessions in 2018 and 2019 have also been doing the rounds.
The home matches moved to Pune in 2018 due to protests in Chennai. The management of the Super Kings managed a Charter Chennai-Pune Train, along with free accommodation for 1000+ die-hard fans of CSK.
CSK are a very popular Franchise, they have over 22 Million followers across all social media platforms combined.
| Platform | Followers | Link |
| Chennai Super Kings Instagram | 4.3M | https://www.instagram.com/chennaiipl/ |
| Chennai Super Kings Twitter | 5.3M | https://twitter.com/ChennaiIPL |
| Chennai Super Kings Facebook | 12M | https://www.facebook.com/TheChennaiSuperKings/ |
| Chennai Super Kings YouTube | 486K | https://www.youtube.com/user/whistle4CSK |
Hotstar made a documentary on Chennai Super Kings called Roar of the Lion.
IPL rivalries –
The Chennai Super Kings have rivalries with Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians. MI and CSK have played against each other the most number of times than any other franchises in IPL. They are known as the big spenders during the IPL auction and are also the most successful of the IPL Teams since 2008.
They have featured against each other 4 times during the IPL Final. Mumbai has won the Final against Chennai 3 times, and CSK has won just once. These two Teams are often considered as the IPL’s ‘EI Clasico.’
The Chennai Super Kings are also engaged with Royal Challengers Bangalore, and their rivalry source is the Cauvery River Water Dispute.
Their rivalries are known as ‘South Indian Derby’ and ‘Kaveri Derby’. CSK has been able to tame RCB in its den in the Final of the 2011 edition of the IPL – the only time they both met in an IPL Final.
CSK Brand value –
Brand Finance adjudged Chennai Super Kings as the most valuable brand by the end of IPL 2018 with a brand value of $65 million.
Brand Finance, the UK-based entity, was sanctioned the project by Economic Times to carry out IPL brand evaluation, along with each of the 8 Teams.
The tag of ‘Most Valuable Team’ was won by Chennai Super Kings in 2010-11 during the IPL seasons. The franchise was estimated to command a brand value of $100 million (approx Rs.2.24 billion).
In February 2013, Brand Finance, the London origin company also evaluated the 150 most valuable teams in the world.
In this prestigious list, the Chennai Super Kings was given the 147th position with a brand value of $46 million, just behind another successful Team, Mumbai Indians.
Chennai Super Kings Stats
CSK ’s All-time Batting Stats
| Most Runs: | Suresh Raina (5369 runs) |
| Most Centuries: | Suresh Raina (2 centuries) |
| Most Fifties: | Suresh Raina (37 fifties) |
| Fastest Fifty: | Suresh Raina (16 balls) |
| Fastest Century: | Murali Vijay (46 balls) |
| Best Batting Average: | Mahendra Singh Dhoni (42.20) |
| Best Strike Rate: | Shane Watson (139.53) |
| Most Sixes: | Mahendra Singh Dhoni (209 sixes) |
| Most Fours: | Suresh Raina (493 fours) |
| Highest Individual Score: | Murali Vijay (127 runs) |
| Highest Batting Partnerships by Wicket | Murali Vijay, Michael Hussey (159 runs) |
CSK’s All-time Bowling Stats
| Most Wickets: | Harbhajan Singh (150 wickets) |
| Best Economy: | Rahul Sharma (7.02) |
| Best Bowling Figures: | Ravindra Jadeja (5/16) |
| Best Bowling Average: | Doug Bollinger (18.72) |
| Most Maidens: | Harbhajan Singh (6 maiden overs) |
| Most Runs Conceded: | Mohit Sharma (58 runs in 4 overs) |
| Most 4 Wickets: | Ravindra Jadeja (3) |
| Most Dot Balls: | Harbhajan Singh (1249 balls) |
| Most Hat-tricks | Shane Watson, Makahya Ntini and Lakshmipathy Balaji (1 each) |
All-time CSK Stats
| Highest Team Total: | 246/5 (against Rajasthan Royals on 3 April 2010 at Chennai) |
| Lowest Team Total: | 79 (against Mumbai Indians on 5 May 2013 at Mumbai) |
CSK Team 2020 –
Here is the list of players that we retained by CSK as well as players bought in the 2020 IPL Auction.
| Player | Retained/bought | Price (Rs cr) |
| MS Dhoni | Retained | 15 |
| Suresh Raina | Retained | 11 |
| Kedar Jadhav | Retained | 7.8 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | Retained | 7 |
| Piyush Chawla | Bought | 6.75 |
| Dwayne Bravo | Retained | 6.4 |
| Sam Curran | Bought | 5.5 |
| Karn Sharma | Retained | 5 |
| Shane Watson | Retained | 4 |
| Shardul Thakur | Retained | 2.6 |
| Ambati Rayudu | Retained | 2.2 |
| Harbhajan Singh | Retained | 2 |
| Josh Hazlewood | Bought | 2 |
| Murli Vijay | Retained | 2 |
| Faf du Plessis | Retained | 1.6 |
| Imran Tahir | Retained | 1 |
| Deepak Chahar | Retained | 0.8 |
| Lungi Ngidi | Retained | 0.5 |
| Mitchell Santner | Retained | 0.5 |
| K M Asif | Retained | 0.4 |
| Monu Kumar | Retained | 0.2 |
| Narayan Jagadeesan | Retained | 0.2 |
| R Sai Kishore (uncapped) | Bought | 0.2 |
| Ruturaj Gaikwad | Retained | 0.2 |
CSK’s previous IPL Performance –
| Year | League standing | Final standing |
| 2008 | 3rd out of 8 | Runners-up |
| 2009 | 2nd out of 8 | Semifinalists |
| 2010 | 3rd out of 8 | Champions |
| 2011 | 2nd out of 10 | Champions |
| 2012 | 4th out of 9 | Runners-up |
| 2013 | 1st out of 9 | Runners-up |
| 2014 | 3rd out of 8 | Playoffs |
| 2015 | 1st out of 8 | Runners-up |
| 2018 | 2nd out of 8 | Champions |
| 2019 | 2nd out of 8 | Runners-up |
