Chennai Super Kings did not stumble through IPL 2025 because one department had an off year. The deeper problem was that their campaign looked under control with the bat. CSK finished with only 4 wins in 14 matches, and the batting profile is the clearest explanation: their overall run rate was around 8.80, the lowest in the league, while their batting average was around 26.25, the second-lowest. That is the profile of a side that kept handing the game away in phases rather than dictating them.
The 2026 squad build suggests CSK recognised exactly that. They retained 16 players with INR 43.40 crore left, brought in Sanju Samson through a trade, and then used the auction to spend INR 41 crore to restructure their DNA. Their two biggest buys were Kartik Sharma and Prashant Veery for INR 14.20 crore each, while Rahul Chahar, Akeal Hosein, Matt Henry, Matthew Short, Zak Foulkes, Sarfaraz Khan and Aman Khan completed the auction haul.
The biggest 2025 weakness was batting structure, not just batting form
The most striking part of CSK’s 2025 numbers is that the weakness spread across the innings.
Their powerplay run rate of 8.70 was the worst in the tournament. Their middle-overs run rate was 8.19, the second-worst, and their death overs run rate was 10.04, again the lowest among the ten teams. So, this was not a team that merely started slowly and recovered later. Nor was it a side that batted okay for 15 overs and then failed to finish. It was a side that struggled to impose itself almost everywhere.
That powerplay issue is especially important. Modern IPL games are increasingly being set up in the first six overs, even if they are not always won there. CSK too often began behind the chase or behind par. They lost two to three wickets in most of the games without much on the board at the end of the first six overs. This forced repair work rather than permit pressure.
The second major weakness was their batting against spin. CSK scored at a strike rate of just 130.9 against spin, the worst strike rate in the competition. That is exactly why the middle overs felt sticky throughout the season. Teams did not need to blow CSK away. They only needed to slow them down, squeeze them into singles, and wait for mistakes. Once that happened, the death overs were often left with too much to rescue.
Their batting-first record completes the picture. CSK won only 1 of their 6 matches batting first, with an average first-innings score of 173.3. That number looks passable until you inspect the volatility behind it. There was a 230/5, yes, but also a 103 all out and a 154 all out. The issue was that CSK rarely looked trustworthy while building the totals in the first innings.
Bowling needed support, but batting was where the season broke
CSK’s bowling in 2025 was not elite, but it was not the central wound either. Their overall bowling economy was 9.47, which was the fifth-best in the league. Their middle-overs economy of 8.74 ranked among the better units, and even at the death, they were closer to respectable than disastrous. In other words, bowling needed reinforcement, but this was not a side that had to rebuild its entire attack from scratch.
That is why the 2026 auction is the best read as a batting correction with bowling support around it, not the other way around.
Sanju Samson is the clearest clue to what CSK wanted to change
The Sanju Samson trade is the most direct response to the 2025 diagnosis. He gives CSK a proven Indian top-order batter, wicketkeeping depth, and most importantly, a player who can change the tempo of an innings rather than merely absorb it. His arrival feels like an answer to two 2025 problems at once: weak starts and lack of control through the first half of the innings.
Then come the two boldest auction bets: Kartik Sharma, a wicket-keeper batter and Prashant Veer, an all-rounder. That is where the spending pattern becomes revealing. CSK did not spread their money across six or seven mid-range names. The concentrated it. INR 28.40 crores of the INR 41 crore auction spend went to Kartik and Prashant alone, roughly 69% of their auction purse. They were also the two most expensive uncapped buys in the auction overall.
That suggests intent. Kartik looks like a bet on batting thrust and top-order flexibility. Prashan looks like a bet on restoring all-round balance after Jadeja and Curran exited. CSK were not shopping cautiously here. They were trying to reshape the XI.
Their spending pattern was India-heavy, top-loaded and role-driven
Of CSK’s 41 crore auction spend, around INR 34.75 crore went on Indian players and only INR 6.25 crore on overseas players. About INR 28.8 crore went on uncapped talent. That is a strong statement. CSK were willing to pay premium money for the Indian upside, while being notably more restrained with overseas support pieces.
That is why names like Matt Henry, Akeal Hosein, Matthew Short and Zak Foulkes matter even if they were not headline buys. These were lower-cost functional additions, not glampur spends. Henry adds seam experience. Hosein and Rahul Chahar help preserve spin options after Jadeja’s departure. Short and Foulkes add flexibility.
This is classic role-led squad building with one big twist: the side of the Indian bets. The Samson trade was the certainty moves. Kartik and Prashant were the ceiling moves.
Did CSK actually fix what hurt them in 2025?
They certainly attacked the right department. The top-order and batting-structure issues have been addressed most directly. Samson is the cleanest solution. Kartik adds another route to pace. Matthew Short and Sarfaraz Khan deepened the batting pool. The all-rounder cluster around Prashant Veer, Folkes, and Aman Khan suggests they wanted more lineup elasticity as well.
Where the answer is complete is against spin. Bettering batting personnel should naturally improve that area, but on paper, this is more like a general batting upgrade than a surgically anti-spin rebuild.
So, the honest verdict is: CSK correctly identified the illness. Their 2026 spending indicates they knew 2025 was lost due to batting tempo, batting control, and batting balance. The risk is like the price of the cure. If Samson settles the top-order and one of Kartik or Prasant becomes a genuine first XI difference-maker, this will look like a sharp, brave rebuild. If not, CSK may have diagnosed the problem well and still overpaid for thesolution.
