The Chennai Super Kings (CSK), five-time champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL), faced a dismal IPL 2025 campaign after an abject five-wicket loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad. This latest defeat brought CSK’s total losses to seven, as the MS Dhoni-led team sat at the bottom of the table. Despite their legacy of success, Head Coach Stephen Fleming admitted the core of the Yellow Army were devastated by auction mistakes. There are 3 major auction mistakes that prevented CSK from being competitive.

1. Paying too Much for R Ashwin

CSK possibly took a huge gamble when paying INR 9.75 crore for Ravichandran Ashwin. From 2021 to 2024, R. Ashwin did not replicate his historic IPL success, taking 42 wickets in 57 innings with an average of 39.7 and a strike rate of 30.8. The 38-year-old off-spinner seems to have lost some pizzazz of his youth, as he was unable to spin the ball with relative revolutions, making it more difficult to deliver clean and effective deliveries. In IPL 2025, Ashwin ended with only five wickets in seven matches and an economy rate of 9.29. CSK's nostalgia for its former superstar seemingly cost them budget considerations and the ability to spot an explosive batter to bolster its flaky batting lineup.

2. The Retention of Ravindra Jadeja at a Premium

One of the more obvious blunders made by CSK was deciding to retain all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja for INR 18 crore! Jadeja, aged 36, returned for the IPL 2025 season with dismal performances, managing to score 166 runs at a mediocre strike rate of 125.76, while only managing to take 6 wickets at an average of 31.33 with an economy of 8.23 during the tournament. CSK's choice to retain him was misguided, as Jadeja has been on a downward spiral in T20 cricket. At INR 18 crore, he could not possibly add enough value to justify his retention price! CSK could have negotiated up a much lower retain, thus freeing space in their salary cap to buy quality T20 cricketers at the mega auction. CSK really misread the situation, which meant they could not build a balanced squad.

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3. Prioritizing All-Rounders Over Specialists

The combination of bits-and-pieces players Sam Curran, Jamie Overton, Vijay Shankar, and Deepak Hooda were key areas of focus at the auction for CSK, while there was a lack of focus on studying specialist talent. During this phase - when other teams were spotting and drafting emerging star cricketers like Priyansh Arya and Vignesh Puthur—CSK was banking on the power of aging veterans! As it turned out, CSK's players could not perform at the level they were expected to. The result was a series of simultaneous changes in the team, and improvement was random and slow. Key batter Ruturaj Gaikwad was injured and unavailable, and a lack of reliance on a core group and specialist players became CSK's downfall. Also, it was a clear indication that CSK had failed to recognize the modern-day T20 game, and their approach at the auction signposted this.