IPL 2023 champions Chennai Super Kings roped in England all-rounder Ben Stokes for a whopping 16.5 crores, but plagued by injuries he could not play more than just two games throughout the season. Former India cricketer and expert Aakash Chopra believes the Englishman may have just been an expensive mistake for the franchise.
Stokes was just coming out of a knee injury when Chennai picked him, and after a couple of games his injury started troubling him and he spent the rest of the season on the bench. According to Chopra, even when he returned to fitness, he didn’t find any place in the playing eleven as the had already developed a good combination in his absence.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Chopra said, “You bought Ben Stokes for 16-odd crores; he was extremely expensive, but what happened after that – you got him to bat at No. 3, and then he got injured. When he was supposed to come back after injury, you realised that he doesn’t fit in your scheme of things.”
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Chopra highlighted that Stokes’s chances were hampered because the likes of Devon Conway, Maheesh Theekshana and Moeen Ali were always likely to start.
“Devon Conway will bat at the top, Moeen Ali in the middle because he is an all-rounder, and then you will have to pick Maheesh Theekshana because you don’t have a spinner other than Jaddu (Ravindra Jadeja) as Moeen Ali doesn’t bowl much.”
The Men in Yellow, who registered their fifth IPL title this season, didn’t have to make up for Stoke’s injury alone. Their other bowler, Deepak Chahar affected by hamstring woes, forced skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni to experiment with players such as Dwaine Pretorius and Sisanda Magala.
“You had death-bowling problems right from the start. It’s not that if Deepak Chahar hadn’t become unfit, Deepak Chahar could have been your death bowler alongside Tushar Deshpande. It wouldn’t have worked out with both of them. So you had to play Matheesha Pathirana or one of Dwaine Pretorius and Sisanda Magala.”
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