Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 campaign opener against Rajasthan Royals will mark the first time ever that the iconic yellow franchise will take the field without either of their two icons, Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni. CSK’s IPL 2026 campaign opener will be the start of a new era of sorts for the franchise. The Ruturaj Gaikwad-captained side, with wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson being another marquee name in the squad, will witness several exciting, young, explosive talents taking to the field. However, the squad will have neither Raina, who retired from all formats of cricket in 2022, nor Dhoni, who will miss the first two weeks of the ongoing season due to a calf strain.
The five-time IPL champions have played 277 matches in franchise cricket – 253 in the IPL and 24 in the now-defunct Champions League T20 tournament. Throughout these 277 matches, the franchise had either Raina or Dhoni, and most of the time both together, in their playing XI. While Raina last played in the IPL in the 2021 season before calling time on his cricketing career, Dhoni continued entertaining fans in a new avatar – a lower-order finisher tasked with hitting as many fours and sixes as possible in the death overs phase of an innings.
In 278 matches, Dhoni has scored 5,439 runs in 242 innings at an average of 38.30 and a strike rate of 137.45, including 24 fifties and a best score of 84*. He is the sixth-highest run-getter in the tournament’s history. In last season’s wooden-spoon finish, Dhoni scored 196 runs in 13 innings at an average of 24.50 and a strike rate of over 135, with a best score of 30*.
Raina is the fifth-highest run-getter in tournament history, with 5,528 runs in 205 matches and 200 innings at an average of 32.51 and a strike rate of 136.73, including a century and 39 fifties.
Squads: Chennai Super Kings Squad: Sanju Samson (w), Ayush Mhatre, Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Urvil Patel, Matthew Short, Shivam Dube, Jamie Overton, Noor Ahmad, Khaleel Ahmed, Matt Henry, Anshul Kamboj, Akeal Hosein, Sarfaraz Khan, MS Dhoni, Dewald Brevis, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Chahar, Spencer Johnson, Mukesh Choudhary, Aman Khan, Gurjapneet Singh, Zakary Foulkes, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Kartik Sharma, Prashant Veer
Rajasthan Royals Squad:
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Riyan Parag (c), Dhruv Jurel (w), Shimron Hetmyer, Dasun Shanaka, Ravindra Jadeja, Jofra Archer, Sandeep Sharma, Ravi Bishnoi, Adam Milne, Yudhvir Singh Charak, Tushar Deshpande, Shubham Dubey, Nandre Burger, Kuldeep Sen, Sushant Mishra, Donovan Ferreira, Kwena Maphaka, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Vignesh Puthur, Ravi Singh, Aman Rao Perala, Brijesh Sharma
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