The former CSK captain successfully completed a fitness test after finishing his rehab, and even joined the squad for their away trips to Hyderabad and Mumbai this week. But Dhoni didn’t start matches with the official word from the CSK camp being that he is still on the road to recovery.
Even without Dhoni, CSK find themselves in fifth spot in the standings with three wins from seven games. Gujarat Titans meanwhile are two spots below CSK despite having the same number of wins and points from the same amount of games.
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Akeal Hosein reacts to CSK’s thumping 103-run win over MI: ‘Cricket is played on the day, not on paper’
Akeal Hosein of Chennai Super Kings celebrates the wicket of Tilak Verma of Mumbai Indians during Match 33 of the TATA Indian Premier League 2026. (Photo by Deepak Malik / CREIMAS for IPL)
The Chennai Super Kings (CSK) produced arguably their most complete performance of IPL 2026, trouncing the Mumbai Indians (MI) by 103 runs at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday. Barring a 73-run stand for the third wicket between Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma, it was a batting meltdown for the hosts, who capitulated from 84/3 to 104 all out, handing the visitors a thumping win.
One of the stars for CSK was Akeal Hosein, whose spell of 4/17 in four overs broke the back of the hosts’ batting line-up. Speaking about MI’s capitulation in the second innings, he said that while teams can perhaps look evenly-matched on paper, it is who executes the plan on that day that decides the match result.
“I mean, at the end of the day, cricket is played on the day, not on paper. And when you go out as a bowling unit, and you execute as well as you did today, there’s nothing to be surprised about when you see the opposition make such a score. It’s just about, you know, singing praises to the bowling unit. And like I say, once you go out and you hit your straps and you execute, anything is possible,” Hosein said in the post-match press conference.
