Fifty-odd for five used to be a storied scoreline for Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
In 2018 Faf du Plessis played one of the great IPL innings to pull the team out of a downward spiral. It looked terminal all the way through to the 18th over of the innings. Twelve balls later they were in the final.
Innings like those are the reason this franchise has always valued experience. Those players are better in a crisis.
At 51 for 5 in Guwahati on Monday, on a pitch where the ball was both nipping about and not coming on to the bat, this brand new CSK were found out. Eventually, a squad with six candidates for this season's emerging player award was sent packing by the boy who won it last season.
Amid a sea of CSK shirts, there were Rajasthan Royals (RR) fans who turned up wearing "Sooryavanshi" on their backs. Some of the shots he played - like the cut for six off the man who denied India passage to the 2019 World Cup final - provided reason for approximately 12,500 people at the Assam Cricket Association stadium to sound like they were manifold.
All through the first innings, the "home" team was dominating and the "home" crowd was quiet. But even they couldn't help but admire a 15-year-old getting to a 15-ball fifty. Finally the vibes in the stadium felt right. Opposition under the pump. Noise through the roof.
Getting bowled out for 127 in a T20 game is bad. Needing a record tenth-wicket stand to get there is bad. But CSK have assembled a batting line-up of six-hitters. It was only logical that they would be unable to cope with conditions that required a broader skill set. In many ways, what would be more worrying is if they were outgunned on a flat pitch.
"Look, I'm sure a few guys will say, oh, in hindsight, maybe I could have played a bit differently," CSK batting coach Mike Hussey said. "But on another day, it comes off and they change the momentum of the game.
"And so, I just, I don't want our batsmen moving forward to have clouded thoughts or put doubts in their mind because I don't think players play their best when they're second-guessing themselves. Oh, do I play this way? Do I play this way? And thinking too much. I would prefer them to come in with a clear attitude, a clear way on how they want to play, assess the conditions quickly, and then back themselves.
"If it comes off, great. If it doesn't, well, then that's sometimes cricket. So I don't want this performance to cloud and put doubt and fear into our team."
Ruturaj Gaikwad, their captain, said at the toss that it was a no-brainer to bowl first. It had rained for two days leading into the game and for a half-hour leading into the toss. For the first two overs, he and Sanju Samson attempted to get a read of what the ball was doing. But, at some point, they had to go. The first six overs are called the powerplay for a reason. When they did, they both lost their stumps. "Chetta". "Raja". Ta-Ta.
Nineteen balls in and three wickets down, CSK turned to their Impact Player. Only once has a team pulled this in-case-of-emergency switch sooner. Sarfaraz Khan walked in but in a sign that the tide was never going to turn, his bat fell foul of the gauge test.
Why did they continue playing high-risk shots? Why didn't they reassess?
"We would have been better in batting, we would have taken the game deep, show some batsmanship, maybe taken the game till 150-160. But nowadays, you never know what is a good score. You just have to keep going," Gaikwad said on the broadcast after the game. So I think it's just one of those days where the wicket was on the tougher side, so not frustrated at all."
There was one saving grace. Kartik Sharma, one of five new players that CSK brought into the XI for this game, looked like he had gears; the ability to knock the good ball for singles and whack bad ones for sixes. In between overs after he sent a long hop from Ravi Bishnoi out of the park, he had Riyan Parag waiting for him with a fist bump.
The typical CSK player in 2026 is less grizzled mongrel and more doe-eyed starlet. Other teams have walked this path already. RR are being captained by a boy they discovered when he was 17 years old. On Monday, Parag introduced this CSK to that vital part of growing up: teething trouble. Now how will they react?
