Young all-rounder Abhishek Sharma scored 75 off 50 balls to power Sunrisers Hyderabad to an eight-wicket victory over Chennai Super Kings in an Indian Premier League match on Saturday. CSK has now lost four matches on the trot. Batting first, Chennai Super Kings scored 154 for 7 but SRH surpassed the target in 17.4 overs. Earlier, Moeen Ali top-scored with a 48 off 35 deliveries for CSK, while skipper Ravindra Jadeja hit a quickfire 15-ball-23. T Natarajan and Washington Sundar got a couple of wickets each for SRH.

A 89-run opening stand set the run chase for the Hyderabad franchise. Williamson (32) failed to convert the start, but Abhishek Sharma (75) and Rahul Tripathi (39) made significant contributions to drive their side home. Sunrisers Hyderabad have revived their lost confidence after a dominant win against the defending champions. With this done and dusted, Williamson said that they will now focus on the fixture to continue their winning momentum.

SRH eventually chased down the total with 14 balls to spare. Kane Williamson later revealed that the ball was gripping on the wicket and it wasn’t too easy to bat on. Hyderabad were a relieved side, coming on the back of two defeats. Kane Williamson stressed that they wanted to focus on their game and play with freedom. Defending champions CSK suffered their four consecutive loss on Saturday after receiving a one-sided eight-wicket thrashing at the hands of Sunrisers Hyderabad with young Abhishek Sharma playing the opposition bowlers with ease.

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CSK’s self-belief is shaken after latest drubbing

“It’s with the ball that we are disappointed but we were 20-25 runs short,” Jadeja said after the match. “We were looking to fight till the end. 155 isn’t bad and our bowlers were looking to take wickets but we’ll look to improve. We’ll talk about where we are lacking. We are professionals and need to work hard, stick together and come back stronger,” the distraught new CSK skipper ‘on paper’ said. Coach Fleming, who didn’t take too many questions, attributed the run of losses to a two-fold problem — unavailability of Deepak Chahar and an overall below-par show in all departments.

“There has been issues of player availability and we have been pretty much below par in all departments — batting, bowling and fielding. “We haven’t been able to put any pressure on the opposition and there hasn’t been any close games. We have been distant second in all games and we need to improve in all departments — that’s pretty much it,” Fleming said. For Gaikwad, it can be a case of expectations weighing him down. There is also the scenario wherein opposition franchises have found out his core weakness – lack of footwork against early movement – and are exploiting it very well.

For Jadeja, though, it is a clear case of lack of confidence in what he is doing. Retained for ₹16 crore, and thereafter an added responsibility of leading CSK, he is a shadow of his flamboyant all-round self that we have come to identify with Jadeja. Give Gaikwad confidence and back him, he said? Jadeja could use some of that for himself. And so, if you want an early summation of Chennai’s problems, here it is. A sum total of ₹22 crore and two of their star players just aren’t at the races yet.

Retention is a key indicator of any franchise’s plans and CSK’s future vision was built around Gaikwad-Jadeja in that context. So far, their plans have come a cropper and for good reason. Problems pertaining to both Gaikwad and Jadeja are rooted to the same core issue. It can be classified under ‘absence of Faf du Plessis’ and/or ‘flawed retention policy and auction strategy’. Chennai didn’t retain Faf, probably under the impression that they would re-buy him. But they faced intense competition for the likes of Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur.