Chennai Super Kings (CSK)
7 min readApr 17, 2021
- The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are a franchise cricket team based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. They play in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Founded in 2008, the team play its home matches at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The team is captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coached by Stephen Fleming.
- The home ground of the Super Kings is the historic M. A. Chidambaram Stadium commonly called “The Chepauk” located in Chennai. The stadium is named after former BCCI President M. A. Chidambaram. It is the oldest stadium in India which is in continuous use. The stadium is owned by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association and has a seating capacity of 50,000 as of May 2013.
- In 2010, the stadium underwent a major renovation for hosting some of the matches of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup. The seating capacity was increased from 36,000 to 50,000 and three new stands were established during this renovation. The Super Kings have a 67.44% win record at this venue, which is often referred to as “Fortress Chepauk” and “Lions’ den”.
- In the 2011 season, the Super Kings won all their 8 home games including the final against Royal Challengers Bangalore. The Super Kings thus became the first team to win all their home games in a season and also the first team to win the tournament at home.
- The Chennai franchise named the team as Chennai Super Kings to honour the rulers of the Tamil empire. The word “super” is used commonly in southern India especially in Tamil Nadu. The team name also derives from India Cements’ brand “Coromandel King”.
- The team logo features the head of a roaring lion in orange and the team name rendered in blue. The crown above the team name is the same as that used in the logo of the brand Coromandel King. According to the logo designers, since the lion is the king of the jungle, the roaring lion logo reflects the team name. The details of the logo signifies various qualities such as youth, vibrancy, solid performance orientation and fiery spirit.
- The Super Kings have lifted the IPL title thrice (in 2010, 2011 and 2018), and have the highest win percentage of matches among all teams in the IPL (59.83 %). They hold the records of most appearances in the playoffs and the Final of the IPL. The team served a two-year suspension from the IPL starting July 2015 for the alleged involvement of their owners in the 2013 IPL betting case, and won the title in its comeback season.
- In addition, they have also won the Champions League Twenty20 in 2010 and 2014. The brand value of the Super Kings in 2019 is estimated to be around ₹732 crore (i.e.) roughly $104 million, making them the second-most valuable IPL franchise, after the Mumbai Indians.
- In September 2007, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the establishment of the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 competition to be started in 2008. In January 2008, the BCCI unveiled the owners of eight city-based franchises. The Chennai franchise was sold to the India Cements for $91 million, making it the fourth most expensive team in the league behind Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
- India Cements acquired the rights to the franchise for 10 years. Former ICC Chairman N. Srinivasan was the owner of the Chennai Super Kings, by means of his position as the vice-chairman and managing director of India Cements Ltd.
- The franchisee was transferred to a separate entity named Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd., after the Supreme Court of India struck down the controversial amendment to the BCCI constitution’s clause 6.2.4 that allowed board officials to have a commercial interest in the IPL and the Champions League Twenty20 on 22 January 2015.
- During the first player auctions for the inaugural IPL season conducted in January 2008, the Chennai franchise bought a number of contemporary star cricketers such as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Matthew Hayden, Stephen Fleming, Muttiah Muralitharan and Michael Hussey. Dhoni became the costliest player of the auction, as the Chennai franchise bought him for $1.5 million. The franchise named Dhoni as the captain of the team and appointed Kepler Wessels as the head coach. They played their first game on 19 April 2008 against Kings XI Punjab at Mohali.
- In 2014, Chennai Super Kings played all their home matches at Ranchi due to issues with Government of Tamil Nadu. In 2018, Chennai Super Kings managed to play a solitary home game against Kolkata Knight Riders due to members of a few fringe political parties staging protests outside the stadium as well as several parts of Chennai, demanding the IPL matches to be moved out of the city until the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) was set up as directed by the honourable Supreme Court of India.
- Despite tight security for the match against KKR, the Chennai police expressed their inability in ensuring enough personnel at the venue for the smooth conduct of the remaining games. The remaining six home matches of Chennai Super Kings were moved out of Chennai. Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune was selected to host the remaining six home matches of Chennai Super Kings.
- Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who was the captain of the Indian limited-overs team in 2008, was bought by the Super Kings for $1.5 million at the 2008 players’ auction. He was the most expensive player in the IPL until 2009 when the Super Kings signed up English all-rounder Andrew Flintoff for $1.55 million. Dhoni is one of the most successful captains in the IPL, having led the Super Kings to eight finals of which the team has won three.
- The vice-captain of the team from 2008 to 2015 was Suresh Raina. Raina holds multiple IPL records such as most caps, and second most run scorer and most catches. Australian batsman Michael Hussey has the best batting average for the Super Kings. He was the first batsman from the Super Kings to score a century in the IPL.
- After Matthew Hayden’s retirement in 2010, Hussey took over his place of opening batsman and was the team’s leading run-scorer in 2011 and 2013 seasons. Murali Vijay, who played for the team from 2009 to 2013, is the first Indian batsman to score two centuries in the IPL. Super Kings’ spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has the third best economy rate in IPL as 6.53 and is the leading wicket-taker for the team.
- The team’s primary colour is yellow with blue and orange stripes on either sides of the jersey. The jersey also incorporates the roaring lion logo in the center of the shirt below the logo of the main sponsor Muthoot Group. The basic look of the jersey has remained the same from the first season with no changes except for the sponsor placement. The kit manufacturer until 2014 was Reebok and from 2015, Australian Apparel and Sports Gear manufacturer Spartan manufactures kits for the team.
- Theme song: The team’s theme song is the “Whistle Podu” designed by Aravind–Shankar. Although the track was created only for YouTube in 2008, it gained popularity during the 2009 season and later became the team’s theme song. The video of the song represents the street dance form of dappangutthu which is very popular among certain communities in Tamil Nadu. It is also a folk dance and music genre employed in Tamil cinema. The recordings of some of the Super Kings players whistling were used in the music video.
- Kit and sponsors: Myntra signed a deal for principal shirt sponsor for 2021 Season. Muthoot Group was one of the principal shirt sponsor, having signed a three-year deal in 2018. Telecom service provider Aircel was the previous shirt sponsor after they signed a three-year deal in 2008 which was then renewed in 2011 for ₹850 million, then the most expensive sponsorship deal in IPL. The team also has sponsorship deals with India Cements, Gulf Oil, Equitas Small Finance Bank, HIL, Nippon Paint, Parle Agro Frooti and Atria Convergence Technologies.
- The Super Kings have a large fan following across India, colloquially referred to as “Yellow Army”. The team has an official fan club called the “Whistle Podu Army” which was founded in January 2016 after the team’s suspension from IPL. In 2018 and 2019, there were reports of over 10,000 fans turning up to watch the team’s practice sessions. After the team’s home games were moved to Pune in 2018, the Super Kings management arranged a charter train between Chennai and Pune, as well as free accommodation, for more than 1,000 fans of the team.
- Standings of CSK from 2008 to 2020:
- Unfortunately, CSK didn’t qualified to playoffs in 2020 for the first time and had an horrible season in UAE. But now in 2021 season, CSK looking to give strong comeback by winning the title for 4th time. Let’s see what happens in this season.
