The injection of youth has invigorated Super Kings: Michael Hussey

For five-time champion Chennai Super Kings, 2025 has been the second consecutive season in which the team has not been able to make it to the IPL playoffs.

For a side which has traditionally reposed faith in seasoned players, the bottom-placed CSK chose to give youngsters Ayush Mhatre, Dewald Brevis, Urvil Patel and Anshul Kamboj a chance in the second half of the current campaign while also looking forward to building a side for the future.

CSK batting coach Michael Hussey spoke about the franchise’s plans. Excerpts:

When everything is lost in terms of qualifying, how do you look at things?

All the guys have been working really hard. Obviously, the results haven’t been going the way we would have liked. But these are the players [Mhatre, Brevis, Urvil and Kamboj) who are hopefully going to be the future of CSK.

What was the thought process behind choosing Mhatre, Brevis, Urvil and Kamboj?

Things didn’t go to plan early in the tournament. Unfortunately, we had a few injuries along the way as well. So, when it got to a stage where we were going to struggle to make the playoffs, there was an opportunity to maybe look at what our future looked like.

Brevis.
| Photo Credit:
RAGU R

It was a chance to do some scouting, to have a look at some younger talent that was coming through, to inject them into the game, and get to see them in pressure situations, and see if they can handle the pressure of the IPL. It was just that the chance presented itself to give guys opportunities.

In the past, we haven’t been able to do that, because we’ve generally been quite a successful team, we’ve been pushing hard for the playoffs, and the league team hasn’t really changed too much. Because of the situation we were in, we didn’t want it just to be a wasted season; we wanted to be able to say, ‘Okay, let’s see what we can put in place for the future, let’s have a look at a few new players as well.’

They’ve had a positive impact on the team, they’re highly motivated to do well, they’ve created energy around the group, because when you’re in this position, sometimes the energy of the players can just go downhill very quickly. But this injection of youth has invigorated everyone.

Urvil
| Photo Credit:
K R DEEPAK

For CSK this season in PowerPlay, run-scoring has been on the lower side, especially in terms of boundary hitting. So, was that a conscious change you made while selecting these (young big-hitting) players? Was that the thing you were trying to solve by picking these players?

Not exactly. The pitch we played at Chennai wasn’t as conducive to hitting big sixes, particularly in the PowerPlay. Obviously, we would like to be more aggressive and score more runs and score quicker in the PowerPlay. You also need to look at the conditions that you’re playing in as well.

But I agree, it has been an area that we were below par on, particularly in the early stages of the season.

The injection of youth; they bring that youthful exuberance, freedom, that lack of fear, which potentially other players will have. And maybe they will have it in the future of their careers. At the moment, like we’re seeing with the young 14-year-old (Vaibhav Suryavanshi) from Rajasthan, they’re playing with no fear whatsoever. He’ll have challenges in his future as well. That’s just part of the game. But it wasn’t a conscious decision that we needed to be more aggressive in the PowerPlay.

The transition has begun in the CSK now, isn’t it?

Well, yeah, I think so. Obviously, they’ve had a positive impact on the team. I mean, Kamboj didn’t get a match early in the tournament, but I think since he has come into the team, he has looked really good. He looks like he’s composed at the level. He can certainly play a role for CSK, hopefully, for many years to come. I like his attitude and his composure under pressure. Mhatre has really fitted in nicely.

His innings in Bengaluru was something special. He’s a special talent, but he’s also a special young man. He has a great support network around him, including his coach back in Mumbai and his parents. I feel as though he has got a great foundation to hopefully have a very successful career. And, I hope it’s with CSK for a long time. It’s an area that we’re putting a fair bit of time into, is that sort of talent identification, trying to find some gold nuggets. Hopefully, it will pay dividends in the years to come.

Transitions are always difficult to manage. CSK was one team that, with its consistency, was always ahead of the curve and coped well. Where do you think it went wrong over the past two seasons? Were you trying to squeeze out one or two more seasons out of players who were slightly getting older?

There’s probably a hundred different answers to that question. And that’s what we’ve been trying to figure out, over the last two months, maybe even longer, maybe two seasons. We’ve been trying to figure out, ‘Okay, what has happened?

What is going on?’ I feel like we’re getting a bit of a handle on it now. But you’ve also got to remember this competition is very tight. It’s very close.

There are matches, even this season, that I feel like on another day we could have won. But I agree, there are definitely areas that we sort of need to identify and that we need to try to sharpen up moving forward. It can happen to anyone. Every team goes through a period like this where you’re going to struggle a little bit.

Hopefully, we can make the downturn not too low. Try and sort of have our downward period, then come back up quite quickly. That’s the plan… it hasn’t been fun the last couple of years. But it also brings the group really close and tight together. It gets us very focused on exactly what we need to do to hopefully work our way back up the table next year.