IPL 2020: Lack of pacers a worry for Chennai Super Kings

CHENNAI: The video of Mahendra Singh Dhoni stepping out to smash a flighted Piyush Chawla delivery over his head for a six during Chennai Super Kings' first practice session has gone viral on social media. But that's not the entire story, the team is currently struggling with the lack of pace bowling options in practice.
The CSK squad comprises seven fast bowlers but most of them were unavailable for the first training session.While Deepak Chahar and a couple of other Tamil Nadu net bowlers were infected with coronavirus last week and will be out for another few more days, the likes of West Indies pacer Dwayne Bravo and Josh Hazlewood are busy with Caribbean Premier League and Australia national duties respectively.

Sam Curran, too, hasn't arrived yet while South African Lungi Ngidi is still in quarantine after joining the squad on September 1. The only fast bowlers to have a go at the nets were Shardul Thakur and KM Asif on Friday apart from a couple of other net bowlers and "it wasn't an ideal situation". With none of them being real quick, the practice against pace got off to a slow start.

"It's still early days and we are not looking to push too hard. The batsmen had a good hit and the spinners didn't have any difficulty in finding their rhythm. The players know that things will be on track once these pacers join. In fact, Ngidi will start training in a couple of days," a source told TOI.
Ngidi said he is motivated to join CSK practice. "I missed out on playing for CSK last season. So I am hugely motivated."