Data Shorts: Dube's slow starts compound CSK's struggles

The lack of stability at the top has immensely hurt Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2025. The five-time winners are the only team to have scored at less than nine runs per over in the powerplay (7.85). The overall powerplay scoring rate for the season has been 9.55. That has mounted pressure on the creaky middle-order to catch up with the scoring rate, and Shivam Dube's underwhelming run hasn't helped the cause.

Dube, the designated spin-hitter and middle-overs enforcer for CSK, has been striking at 133.72 in IPL 2025. He'd gone at 156.22, 158.33 and 162.30 respectively in the last three seasons. Diving further into the 2025 numbers highlights two glaring aspects: struggles against spin and being slow off the blocks.

The left-hander has been striking at 115.58 in his first 10 balls in IPL 2025 (dot-ball percentage: 41.5%). The corresponding number in CSK's title-winning run in 2023 was 146.56, and was matched last year at 144.16. To highlight the magnitude of difference, middle-order batters (No.3 – 7) collectively struck at 131.62 in the first 10 balls of their innings across IPL 2023 and 2024 – the most run-filled editions yet.

Furthermore, Dube struck at 176.47 against spin in 2023 and at 155.35 in 2024, finding the boundary once every five balls. His scoring rate against spin in IPL 2025 has been a meagre 114.86, with one boundary per eight balls.

Ayush Mhatre's brisk 15-ball 32 seemed to have lifted CSK's innings briefly on Sunday, but runs dried up after his dismissal in the seventh over. Shaik Rasheed batted 20 balls for a sub-100 strike-rate, and Ravindra Jadeja first found the ropes on the 14th ball he faced.

Dube could manage just three singles off his first 10 balls, and his strike-rate crossed 100 for the first time after he'd faced 20. The start of his innings as a middle-overs enforcer has directly impacted CSK's fate ever since he joined the franchise in 2022. In that high-octane clash at the Chinnaswamy last year, Dube walked in when the asking-rate to qualify was 10.5. He was tested with short-pitched deliveries by Lockie Ferguson and Cameron Green then in a 15-ball struggle for 7, and required rate eventually jumped over 12.

CSK scored at 7.77 runs per over in the middle phase (Overs 7-15) on Sunday. MI responded at 10.55. "MI started their death bowling early, we should have started our slog early. We should have capitalised and got those runs," MS Dhoni admitted after the game.

On the same strip that saw RCB and MI rack up 430 runs earlier this season, CSK's innings really seemed to get going when Dube hit back-to-back sixes off Ashwani Kumar at 15.3 and 15.4, and Jadeja closed it out to make it 24 off the over. Suryakumar Yadav also hit sixes at identical points in MI's innings later in the night, and with the damage he and Rohit had inflicted earlier, those were enough to close it out with a whopping 26 balls to spare.