By Prakash Nair 
Chennai, April 3: Chepauk was supposed to be different. Home crowd. Home pitch. First game of the season at their own ground. CSK had every reason to believe tonight was the night things would finally click. But Punjab Kings had other plans entirely, and by the time the last over arrived, the yellow stands had already gone quiet.
PBKS won by 5 wickets. 8 balls to spare. Match 7. Done.
CSK are now 0 wins from 2 games this season. The pressure is real.
It Started Before The Toss
Here is the thing about tonight’s game. Punjab Kings came into Chennai with a plan, and that plan started the moment Shreyas Iyer called correctly at the toss and said Bowl first.
Not a surprising call, to be fair. PBKS have now won three games in a row at Chepauk before tonight. They know this ground. They respect it, but they do not fear it. Iyer strutted to the middle for the toss like a man who had already won half the battle. In hindsight, maybe he had.
CSK, meanwhile, were already walking out with two big holes in their lineup. MS Dhoni is out with a calf injury, and there is no timeline for his return yet. Dewald Brevis, the young South African who was supposed to add punch in the middle order, is also sitting out with a side strain. So Ruturaj Gaikwad was essentially asked to lead a depleted side in their first home game of the season, against a team riding serious momentum.
Tough ask. And it showed.
Samson Fails Again, and It Is Getting Worrying Now
Look, nobody wants to pile on Sanju Samson. The man is genuinely one of the most talented batters in Indian cricket. On his day, he can take any attack apart.
But this is two innings now for CSK, and both times he has walked back to the dressing room in single digits. Tonight it was 7 runs. Xavier Bartlett bowled one that angled in, Samson shuffled too far across his stumps like he always does when he is not in nick, and the edge flew to the keeper.
Simple dismissal. Too simple for a batter of his class.
The problem is not talent. The problem is that technical shuffle. When Samson is in form, he covers that movement beautifully. When he is not, it becomes a wicket waiting to happen. Right now, in early IPL 2026, he is clearly not in form. And CSK need him badly because there is nobody else in that top order who brings what he brings.
Someone in the CSK camp needs to have a quiet conversation with him. Soon.
And Then This 18-Year-Old Just Took Over
With Samson gone for peanuts and CSK barely breathing at 1 down in the second over, Ayush Mhatre walked to the crease.
Eighteen years old. Home debut under the Chepauk lights. A crowd that was already nervous after losing their first wicket cheaply.
And he just played as if none of that mattered.
Mhatre did not come out swinging wildly. He took a couple of deliveries to read the conditions and then started finding gaps, picking his moments, and putting bad balls away with the kind of calmness that senior international players spend years trying to develop. Six fours. Five sixes. 73 runs off just 43 balls.
There was a moment in the seventh or eighth over where he pulled a short delivery over square leg for six, and the entire stadium just erupted. This kid is something else.
He also broke Suresh Raina’s record in this particular matchup for CSK. Raina. A man who gave fifteen years of his life to this franchise. That is the kind of company Mhatre is now keeping, and he is not even old enough to have watched most of Raina’s career.
At the other end, Ruturaj Gaikwad was playing his steady game, rotating strike and keeping the board ticking. The two of them added 96 runs together for the second wicket, and CSK suddenly had something to build on.
Then Yuzvendra Chahal happened.
He got Gaikwad for 28. Then he got Mhatre caught at the boundary off Vyshak’s bowling. Two big wickets gone inside two overs, and CSK were staring at a middle-order collapse.
Sarfaraz Walked In And Just Started Smashing
Sarfaraz Khan is not the kind of batter who eases himself in. He came to the crease with CSK at 123 for 3 and immediately started hitting Arshdeep Singh for boundaries like it was a friendly game in a park somewhere.
Four. Four. Four. Ramp over the keeper for another boundary. All in the same general area of one over.
32 runs off 12 balls. That kind of innings does not just add runs to a total. It shifts the whole momentum of a match. The fielders start getting nervous. The bowlers lose their rhythm. The crowd wakes back up.
Shivam Dube came in and did his thing at the other end. Calm, powerful, finding the gaps. He finished unbeaten on 45 off 28 balls and, alongside debutant Prashant Veer, put on another 41 runs in the last few overs to push CSK well past 200.
Final total: 209 for 5 in 20 overs.
On this surface, against this attack, that felt like a score CSK could defend. The spinners had been decent in patches. Noor Ahmad had been tidy. On paper, 210 to chase at Chepauk at night is not easy.
Priyansh Arya had not read that paper.
39 Runs Off 11 Balls. Just Let That Sink In.
It is fast. It is very fast. And then there is whatever Priyansh Arya did in the first three overs of the PBKS chase.
He came out opening the batting and treated a 210-run target like it was a minor inconvenience. In 11 deliveries, he hit 39 runs. That is a strike rate of 355. Five boundaries, total disregard for the match situation, just pure instinct, and clean hitting.
By the time Matt Henry finally bowled him through the gate, PBKS were already past 60 runs in the powerplay, and the required run rate was no longer a threat. Arya had done what he came to do. Break the back of the chase early so his teammates could finish the job without pressure.
It is a very specific skill that Arya does. Most batters want to be there at the end, scoring the winning runs. Arya understands his role is to make sure there is barely any winning left to do by the time the proper batters come in.
That is cricket intelligence. Rare in anyone. Remarkable in someone so young.
Connolly Did The Quiet Work In The Middle
After Prabhsimran Singh got himself run out in a messy mix-up mid-pitch, Cooper Connolly took over.
The Australian is only playing his second IPL match ever, but you would not know it watching him bat. Cool head, clean hands, picks gaps sensibly. He was not hitting sixes every over, but he was moving the score along and keeping the asking rate in check while CSK tried everything to get back into the game.
Noor Ahmad bowled his overs well. Rahul Chahar was brought in as an impact substitute and also applied some pressure. For a few overs in the middle of the innings, CSK actually looked like they might squeeze back into it.
But every time Punjab needed a boundary, they found one. Every time CSK needed a wicket, the ball went just past a fielder or over one. That is the story of this CSK bowling attack right now. No luck. No cutting edge.
Connolly was eventually caught at the deep boundary off a Kamboj full toss. His job was done by then.
Iyer Walked In Like He Already Knew
Shreyas Iyer coming to the crease mid-chase in an IPL game is one of cricket’s more intimidating sights. The man does not look like someone who is chasing a target. He looks like someone who is deciding at what point he would like to finish.
He hit Chahar for two easy boundaries, rotated strike with Wadhera, and generally made the whole thing look very unfair. He was eventually run out, which felt more like a minor inconvenience than a real shift in momentum. By the time he walked off, PBKS needed very few off quite a few balls.
Marcus Stoinis closed it out without drama.
PBKS 210 for 5. 18.4 overs. Won by 5 wickets with 8 balls to spare.
Chahal Is Simply A Problem CSK cannot solve
At some point, this has to be talked about seriously.
Yuzvendra Chahal now has 23 wickets against CSK in IPL cricket. His economy rate against them is 7.1. He took a hat-trick the last time he played at Chepauk. Tonight, he got Gaikwad and Samson out and barely broke a sweat doing it.
CSK’s batters know exactly what Chahal bowls. They have faced him hundreds of times. They have studied him on video. And still, match after match at this ground, he finds a way to get them out. There is something almost personal about it at this point.
Where Does CSK Go From Here
Two games. No wins. First time since their really rough patches that CSK have started a season 0-2.
The bowling is the bigger worry right now. Posting 209 and losing is not a batting problem. It is a bowling problem. This attack, without Dhoni reading the game behind the stumps and without a genuine match-winning spinner in the XI at all times, is leaking runs in the powerplay and at the death.
Dhoni’s return is the obvious fix, but there is no confirmed date yet. When he does come back, even if he bats at 9 and faces two balls, his presence changes how the whole team functions. His experience behind the stumps alone is worth a dozen runs a game.
Until then, Gaikwad has to figure out combinations fast. The IPL table moves quickly. Two more losses and CSK are in real trouble.
Punjab Looks Like Last Year But Better
PBKS are 2 for 2. Two games, two wins, both convincing.
Ricky Ponting has put together a side with no obvious weakness. Arya and Prabhsimran at the top. Connolly at three. Iyer in the middle. Stoinis is lower down. Arshdeep and Jansen with the new ball. Chahal through the middle overs.
Every single slot is filled with purpose. There are no passengers.
Last season, they reached the final and lost. This group is returning with something to prove and the hunger is written all over how they play. Four wins in a row at Chepauk now. At a ground that is supposed to be CSK’s backyard.
That is not luck. That is a seriously good cricket team doing what seriously good cricket teams do
Match Summary
CSK 209/5 in 20 overs Ayush Mhatre 73 (43) | Shivam Dube 45 not out (28) | Sarfaraz Khan 32 (12) Chahal 2 wickets | Vyshak 1 wicket
PBKS 210/5 in 18.4 overs Won by 5 wickets, 8 balls remaining. Priyansh Arya 39 (11) | Cooper Connolly solid middle overs contribution | Shreyas Iyer run out Matt Henry 1 wicket | Anshul Kamboj 1 wicket
Venue: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai Toss: PBKS elected to bowl Player of the Match: Priyansh Arya, PBKS
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
