Return from exile: CSK's 'dad's army' wins it at the first attempt

Two summers ago, Chennai Super Kings did not exist. Suspended for 2016 and 2017 in the wake of the 2013 betting scandal, the most decorated brand in the Indian Premier League watched from the outside while the tournament carried on without it. On Sunday night at the Wankhede Stadium, the exiles came home to a trophy.

Eight wickets, one exile ended

Chennai Super Kings beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 8 wickets in the 2018 final in Mumbai to win the title in their very first season back. It was their third IPL crown, and comfortably the most improbable — a team reassembled from scratch after two years in cold storage, winning at the first time of asking.

Sunrisers, the best bowling side of the season, set a total that looked defendable. Kane Williamson made 47, Yusuf Pathan finished unbeaten on 45 off 25, and SRH posted 178 for 6. Against that attack — Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul — 179 to win should have been a proper contest.

Shane Watson made it a procession.

Watson’s night

The Australian, 36 years old and one of the many over-thirties CSK had been mocked for hoarding, played the innings of his life. Watson was dropped early and never gave another chance, finishing unbeaten on 117 from 57 balls — 11 fours, 8 sixes, a strike rate above 205. It is the highest individual score ever made in an IPL final.

He reached three figures in a final for the second time in his CSK-to-be career of one season, and by the back end he was simply toying with the bowling. Ambati Rayudu drilled the winning boundary through the covers with Watson watching from the non-striker’s end — 18.1 overs gone, two wickets down, the chase closed out with more than an over to spare.

The ‘dad’s army’

When CSK returned to the auction table in January, the strategy drew open ridicule. The franchise spent big on familiar, ageing names and ended up with a squad in which eleven players were over thirty and the average age brushed 31. Critics called it a “dad’s army” and an “old age home”. MS Dhoni, two months short of 37 himself, and coach Stephen Fleming simply shrugged and pointed at the experience.

The logic held all season:

• Match-ups over athleticism. Dhoni’s field settings and bowling changes squeezed opponents in the middle overs where CSK’s legs supposedly could not keep up.
• Big-game temperament. Watson, Rayudu, Faf du Plessis and Dwayne Bravo had all won things before; none of them flinched in the knockouts.
• Dhoni’s own form. The captain finished the season as one of the tournament’s most reliable finishers, ageless behind the stumps and at the death.

CSK had already beaten Sunrisers in Qualifier 1 on 22 May to book the final early, so this was the second time in a week they had solved the league’s meanest attack.

Home was never home

The remarkable part is that Chennai barely played in Chennai. After protests over the Cauvery water dispute — a shoe was thrown at Ravindra Jadeja during one match at Chepauk — the franchise’s home fixtures were shifted to Pune for security reasons. A team without a season for two years then effectively played most of a title run without a home ground, and still finished on top.

The 2018 final
SRH	178/6 (20)
CSK	181/2 (18.1)
Result	CSK won by 8 wickets
Player of the Match	SR Watson, 117* (57)

For a franchise that had spent two years wondering whether it would ever return, and a squad the league had laughed at in January, it was as complete a vindication as sport offers. The dad’s army came back from exile and, at the first attempt, won the whole thing.

The result, margin and Player-of-the-Match for this final are drawn from IPLTracker’s 2018 season page, computed by the CricketLogic engine from ball-by-ball data.