MS Dhoni’s absence was always going to hang over the Chennai Super Kings’ first match of IPL 2026. But the defeat to the Rajasthan Royals in Guwahati showed that this was not really a night to ask whether CSK missed a vintage finisher. It was a night that exposed how much they missed the control, order and calm that Dhoni still brings to the side. CSK were bowled out for 127 in 19.4 overs, slipped to 41 for 4 inside the powerplay, and then watched RR chase the target in just 12.1 overs for the loss of two wickets.
The scoreboard itself gives the first part of the answer. Dhoni was unavailable because of a calf strain that is expected to keep him out for the first two weeks of the season. In his absence, CSK’s innings never found any structure. Their recognised batters were blown away early, the middle order could not rebuild, and Jamie Overton’s 43 became the only knock of substance in an innings that was already in ruins. By the time RR began the chase, CSK had left themselves with no margin at all.
What CSK missed, and what they did not
The easy reaction is to say CSK missed Dhoni the batter. That is only partly true. Recent IPL evidence suggests his batting role has changed too much for that to be the full explanation. In IPL 2025, Dhoni played all 14 matches and scored 196 runs as CSK finished bottom. In IPL 2024, he made 161 runs at a strike rate of 220.54, but that came in only 11 innings, with eight not outs, in a highly protected finisher’s role. In IPL 2023, he scored 104 runs at a strike rate above 180, again as a short-burst lower-order hitter rather than a batter expected to rescue a side from 30 for 3.
That distinction matters. Against RR, CSK did not lose because they were missing 20 late runs. They lost because their innings was badly damaged in the first six overs. MS Dhoni, in his recent IPL phase, has still been dangerous, but mainly in cameos, not as a volume batter rebuilding an innings over 25 or 30 balls. Asking the current version of Dhoni to walk into that collapse and turn 127 into a winning total would be asking him to play a role he has not really occupied in the last three seasons.
{{/usCountry}}That distinction matters. Against RR, CSK did not lose because they were missing 20 late runs. They lost because their innings was badly damaged in the first six overs. MS Dhoni, in his recent IPL phase, has still been dangerous, but mainly in cameos, not as a volume batter rebuilding an innings over 25 or 30 balls. Asking the current version of Dhoni to walk into that collapse and turn 127 into a winning total would be asking him to play a role he has not really occupied in the last three seasons.
{{/usCountry}}Where CSK almost certainly missed him was behind the stumps and in the management of the game. RR blasted through the chase, with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi smashing 52 off 17 balls and reaching a fifty in just 15 deliveries. Dhoni’s wicketkeeping value has never been limited to catches and stumpings; it lies in field settings, reading batters, controlling tempo and helping bowlers reset in real time. He remains one of the defining wicketkeeper-tacticians in cricket history, and on a night when CSK had only 127 to defend, even a small lift in organisation might not have won them the match, but it could have made the defence less chaotic.
So yes, CSK missed Dhoni. But they missed him more as a stabilising presence than as a guaranteed batting fix. The bigger truth from Guwahati is harsher: CSK’s top order failed so badly that even Dhoni’s recent, carefully managed version was unlikely to save the game on his own.