Rituraj Gaikwad's strike rate has been the lowest.Image Credit source: PTI

The fans of Chennai Super Kings remained surrounded by only disappointment in the IPL 2026 season. Firstly, former team captain MS Dhoni did not play on the field even once in 13 consecutive matches in the season. On top of that, the team's performance was also full of ups and downs this season and it was in trouble of reaching the playoffs. If this was not enough then the super flop batting of team captain Ruturaj Gaikwad further increased this sorrow. The CSK captain has proved to be the slowest batsman in the powerplay this season.

Chepauk Stadium on Monday 18th May Sunrisers Hyderabad In the match against Rituraj Gaikwad won the toss and chose to bat first. This match was 'do or die' for the team because the team was already lagging behind in the race for the playoffs. In such a situation, the team needed to bat first and score a big score against the strong batting line-up of Sunrisers and this was a good opportunity for captain Gaikwad to show his strength with the bat.

Gaikwad is the slowest batsman in powerplay

But as soon as Chennai's innings started, the same situation happened which has been Gaikwad's story this entire season. While every batsman tries to bat stormily in the powerplay and almost most of the batsmen have been successful in it this season, Gaikwad failed to do so. In the first 6 overs of the game, he got a chance to play 11 balls and in this he could score only 9 runs.

In this way, Gaikwad has proved to be the laziest batsman in the powerplay in IPL 2026. Among all the batsmen who have played at least 100 balls in the powerplay this season, Gaikwad has had the lowest strike rate. The Chennai captain has scored 182 runs in 13 innings in the powerplay at a strike rate of only 124.6. After him, Kolkata's Angkrish Raghuvanshi (126.5 strike rate, 129 runs) is at second place.

Not a single boundary was hit against SRH

Even in this innings against Sunrisers, Ruturaj was out after scoring only 15 runs in 21 balls. Gaikwad, who came in the opening, was out in the 12th over but the most surprising thing was that during this period he did not hit even a single boundary. In this season, although Gaikwad was seen scoring some runs in 2-3 matches, the entire season proved to be bad for him. He has scored only 312 runs in 13 innings at an average of 31, in which he has hit only 28 fours and 10 sixes. He has also scored 2 half-centuries during this period.

Sumit Sundriyal

Presently I am working as Assistant News Editor (Sports) in TV9 Hindi (Sports 9). Reaching here started from 2009, when I took admission in Mass Media Honors Course (2009-12) at Jamia Millia Islamia. Then in 2013, he completed Post-Graduation Diploma in Hindi Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication. It was from here in 2013 that he entered professional journalism for the first time and first made a place in News 18 India TV channel. Before taking entry in digital journalism, he spent about 6 years in the TV industry, where he worked on the assignment desk. While at the assignment desk, gathering information is the most important task and it is the responsibility to check every aspect of that news and take it forward. Did the same thing while working at News 18 India. After this, the fascination with sports and sports news turned towards digital journalism and a new journey began. It started during IPL 2019, when Quint joined Hindi. After writing sports news with Quint for a year, he established a relationship with TV9 Hindi to achieve a new position in this work. For the last 3 years, I have been bringing every small, big, serious and funny sports news to you here and am constantly trying to present it in a better way.

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