Home
Rather than going for already proven and experienced players, the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) decided to invest heavily on young talents during the IPL 2026 mini-auction. This isn't a thing that the franchise is known for doing as they generally put their faith on players who have played a lot in the league and spend big on them.
However, this time around, they spent a combined total of INR 28.40 crore on the uncapped Prashant Veer and Kartik Sharma. The two players were signed for INR 14.20 crores each and instantly became the two most expensive uncapped players in the history of IPL, breaking the previous record of INR 10 crore that was held by Avesh Khan. CSK already have youngsters like Ayush Mhatre and Sameer Rizvi in their team and they will now be joined by two ve4ry exciting talents.
Prashant and Kartik's careers so far
Prashant hails from Uttar Pradesh and Kartik comes from Rajasthan. While the former has played only two first-class games and nine T20 matches in his career so far, the latter has been involved in eight first-class games, nine List-A matches and 12 T20s. The two are far from experienced even at the domestic level, but CSK head coach Stephen Fleming believes that they are already fearless players and labelled them as "T20 babies".
“These are T20 babies. They’ve grown up with the format. They just express their skills. There’s no fear. Sometimes experienced players get caught trying to work out where the game’s going. So there’s real appeal, especially when the game is being played faster and faster. I think it’s a byproduct of T20 being around for some time now, and we’re all learning, being involved with it, and the faster it gets, these young players seem to play better,” Fleming said post the IPL auction.
A major shift in CSK's strategy
Fleming remarked that CSK may have been slow to evolve unlike the other teams, but they have now identified a different strategy and haven't hung on to the methods that led them to success in the past.
“As the game has evolved, we might have been a little bit slow to evolve with it. Sometimes you can hang on to theories and philosophies because of past success, but we identified that we needed to shift, and partly the work that we did last season, halfway through, has enabled us to continue that work done,” he added.
ALSO READ: Prithvi Shaw's 4-word post after being signed by Delhi Capitals in IPL 2026 auction goes viral
CSK's squad for IPL 2026: Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Ayush Mhatre, MS Dhoni, Sanju Samson, Dewald Brevis, Urvil Patel, Shivam Dube, Jamie Overton, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Noor Ahmad, Khaleel Ahmed, Anshul Kamboj, Gurjapneet Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Mukesh Choudhary, Nathan Ellis, Akeal Hosein, Prashant Veer, Kartik Sharma, Matthew Short, Aman Khan, Sarfaraz Khan, Matt Henry, Rahul Chahar, Zak Foulkes.
ADVERTISEMENT
