Chennai Super Kings have managed to shed their ‘Daddy’s Army’ tag following the IPL 2026 auction and have managed to build a squad that majorly comprises of youngsters. Yet, the challenges that the five-time champions face in terms of zeroing in on their playing XI are complex. For starters, they have an overload of talented batters which makes it hard to accommodate all of them in the line-up. An extra batter will deprive them of a bowler and vice-versa, leaving them at a position where they need to carefully workout the strategy to deploy the best XI, of course based on conditions. Ahead of IPL 2026, let’s take a look at CSK’s strongest XI for the upcoming season.
CSK strongest XI for IPL 2026
PositionPlayerRole1. Ayush MhatreOpener2. Sanju SamsonOpener / Keeper3. Ruturaj Gaikwad (C)Batter4.Dewald BrevisBatter5.Shivam Dube All-rounder6.Prashant VeerAll-rounder7.MS Dhoni Batter8. Anshul KambojAll-rounder9.Noor AhmadSpinner10.Nathan EllisFast-bowler11.Khaleel AhmedFast-bowlerImpact player: Rahul Chahar / Sarfaraz Khan / Kartik SharmaMhatre’s new opening partner will undoubtedly be Samson. The wicketkeeper-batter was traded from RR to CSK for Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran at a price of Rs 18 crore. Sanju is a certain in the playing XI and may even take over the keeping gloves from Dhoni in some games, as reports suggested previously.
Captain Gaikwad will continue at the number 3 position while young SA sensation Brevis will occupy the all-important number 4 position. At five is Dube, who has been used as an impact player in the previous edition on most occasions. However, things might be a little different this time around, especially since the all-rounder has started bowling regularly and CSK are without the services of Matheesha Pathirana.
At number 6 is Veer, who was paid a whooping Rs 14.20 crore in the mini-auction. He has been dubbed as Jadeja’s replacement and hence is a must-have in the playing XI. While the CSK CEO has confirmed that he would bat at number 7, it is likely that veteran Dhoni will bat down the order and hence could come in at number 7 instead.
Kamboj, Noor, Ellis and Ahmed are the first-choice bowlers for CSK. Should CSK want to boost their spin battery, they could bring in Rs 7.20 crore buy Rahul Chahar as an impact player in place of Dube. Meanwhile, other impact player options include Rs 7 crore buy Sarfaraz Khan and Rs 14.20 crore keeper-batter Kartik Sharma.
CSK squad for IPL 2026
MS Dhoni (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Sanju Samson (traded in from RR), Ayush Mhatre, Dewald Brewis, Shivam Dube, Urvil Patel, Noor Ahmad, Nathan Ellis, Shreyas Gopal, Khaleel Ahmed, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Mukesh Choudhary, Jamie Overton, Gurjapneet Singh, Anshul Kamboj, Akeal Hosein, Prashant Veer, Kartik Sharma (wk), Matthew Short, Aman Khan, Sarfaraz Khan, Matt Henry, Rahul Chahar, Zak Foulkes
CSK strongest playing XI for IPL 2026: Sanju Samson to open, will MS Dhoni fit in? Inside Sport India.
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