4 min readUpdated: Mar 31, 2026 08:25 AM IST
Chennai Super Kings batting coach Mike Hussey has admitted that given the conditions in Guwahati, their batting unit should have assessed the pitch better and played cautious cricket in the first six overs. Batting first on a pitch that was under covers because of rain in the city, Chennai were blown away inside the powerplay, where they lost four wickets, which forced them to bring in Sarfaraz Khan as an Impact Player. After being bowled out for 127, Rajasthan Royals won by 8 wickets in 12.1 overs as CSK’s approach came under scrutiny.
Having overhauled the batting unit, CSK had been building up to play a new aggressive brand of cricket. But on a pitch with a bit of assistance to the seamers, their plans didn’t bear fruition. “There was certainly some movement early, and our batsmen probably struggled to adjust to that movement early. So if we had our time again, maybe we would have been a little bit more cautious and tried to get through that first six overs without losing too many wickets. But it’s easy to say that in hindsight, isn’t it? You know, the way the game is being played these days, they want to be aggressive, they want to play their shots, and probably the conditions weren’t quite right for that today,” Hussey said.
Coming into the opening fixture, CSK had their share of problems. Apart from losing pacer Nathan Ellis, they missed Dewald Brevis and MS Dhoni here. And more than Dhoni, Brevis’ was always going to be a big miss. While their attacking philosophy didn’t get the best of starts, Hussey said they will back this team to pull it off. “Oh, 100% we’ll still be backing this team. No questions about that. There’s no doubt about that. I think if we had our time again, we may have just tried to adjust to the conditions a little bit better, but generally speaking, around the country, the pitches are going to be pretty good for batting. So I’d expect much better batting performances in the future, especially if the pitches are a bit flatter. So I think it’s a good lesson for us, though. You know, we need to take the lessons from this game that if the conditions aren’t perfect, maybe we need to adjust our sights a little bit and try and score our runs in different areas. So we’ll definitely take a few learnings from it, but as I said, we want to try and put this one behind us pretty quickly and move on back to Chennai,” Hussey said.
Batting first, CSK’s approach with the bat, where they seemed fixated with showing intent rather than assessing the situation and adjusting accordingly raised eyebrows. On a pitch where even a total in the range of 160 was a par score, CSK fell into the trap of going in search for more. “It’s never ideal to lose the early wickets. You know, it puts players in an awkward situation. Which way do they go? Do they try and soak up a bit of pressure, maybe score a little bit slower, but preserve the wickets? But then sometimes you can dig yourself into a bit of a hole, so you still need to look to keep scoring. So, I mean, look, I’m sure a few guys will say, in hindsight, maybe I could have played a bit differently, but on another day it comes off and they change the momentum of the game. So I don’t want our batsmen moving forward to have clouded thoughts or put doubts in their mind because I don’t think players play their best when they’re second-guessing themselves,” he added.
