CHENNAI: ‘Macha, we have spinners; we will deal with them easily.’ For the longest time, the trend and tactics at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai’s Chepauk were evidently simple – spin stranglehold. Every team that came to the fortress knew what they had to contend with, and so did the Chennai Super Kings management, which relied heavily on their star spinners to come out on top.
But since 2024, spin dipped, and so did CSK’s fortunes.
No longer was spin an effective weapon; no longer did they have a captain who had his Midas touch to turn the game around in the middle overs. Or it seemed, till the clash against Kolkata Knight Riders, on April 14 (Wednesday).
In that match, spin became the differentiating factor between the two sides.
Noor Ahmad turned the clock back and displayed why he was once considered Rashid Khan’s mirror image. Akeal Hosein showed the faithful at the ’Pauk why CSK desperately wanted him in the playing XI, with a masterclass on spin bowling in T20.
KKR started their run chase on the slowest note possible, but quickly upped the gear, accelerating to 79 for two in the first half of the run chase. But then, Hosein turned up to the party, varying his pace in such a manner that he finally got his man, bowling in the high 90s to get the better of Angkrish Raghuvanshi.
One brought two, as Noor delivered the killer blow for the Knights, dismissing the well-set Ajinkya Rahane and Cameron Green in successive deliveries. It was not just the dismissal but the way the left-arm wrist spinner operated, tossing the ball away from Rahane’s arc, with a simple catch for Gaikwad.
“One thing: Can someone please make Noor Ahmad bowl round the stumps for right-handers, please,” asked CSK legend Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube show.
It was exactly what transpired at the ’Pauk, as the Afghanistan spinner bowled from round the wicket for Cameron Green, disturbing the timbers off the very first ball, and all but ending KKR’s hopes of a miraculous comeback against the five-time IPL champions.
8 overs, 47 runs, four wickets, 5.85 economy rate.
"To be able to get some deviation off the surface is very important. I think that is what he's (Noor) been working on. Everybody accepts there are going to be days when the wickets are going to be very flat," CSK's assistant bowling coach Sridharan Sriram said in the post-match press conference.
"But still looking to be aggressive, putting revs on the ball, and getting the ball to spin will definitely help him a lot, and that's where you can induce mistakes. Because once you start to get defensive, then the batters are going to get on top of you," he said.
Over the last two years, the ‘Anbuden’ might have been a flat road for the spinners, but now they are BACK, and so was CSK’s momentum in IPL 2026.
Teams better come prepared for more spin strangleholds at the ’Pauk.