He shares his thoughts on who might be their Impact Player this season.
Mike Hesson, the former RCB coach, talks about CSK’s playing XI for IPL 2025. He shares his thoughts on who might be their Impact Player this season.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Mike Hesson explained how CSK might handle their overseas players in IPL 2025. He said that Matheesha Pathirana is almost certain to play, but the team has to decide whether they will use him as the Impact Player or keep Noor Ahmad in the squad. Hesson mentioned that CSK could even include both Pathirana and Noor in the playing XI, and have someone like Khaleel Ahmed in the mix as well. However, he felt that the decision on who exactly becomes the Impact Sub is more about fine details than a major selection issue.
“Then we get into the overseas shape, and obviously Matheesha Pathirana will play. It’s just whether they use him as an impact sub and have Noor Ahmad in the squad, or whether they’ll interchange that in terms of who would be the impact sub. They could potentially have both in the XI—have Khaleel down here—but I think that’s just semantics really,” Hesson said.
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Mike Hesson said that if CSK lose a lot of wickets and are in trouble, they still have the option to bring in Jamie Overton. That’s probably why he thinks they might leave Pathirana as the Impact Player and have Noor Ahmad in the starting XI, because Noor is definitely going to play. If they lose too many wickets, they might have to make a tough choice and think about bringing in Overton to strengthen the batting. But if they do that, they won’t be able to play Pathirana, so it would be a late tactical decision CSK has to make.
“If they were to lose a number of batsmen, like they were in trouble, then they still have the option of bringing in Jamie Overton. And that would be probably why I think they would leave Pathirana down here as your impact, bring Noor Ahmad in because he’s definitely going to play. And then if they were losing wickets, they would have to make a sacrifice to say, “Hey, are we going to bring in Jamie Overton?” But that would mean they can’t play Pathirana, so that would be a late tactical shift,” he added.
The former RCB coach, Mike Hesson, said it’s similar to what CSK did last season when they included Sameer Rizvi as an extra batter in the lineup. He feels that this time, they have the chance to be a bit smarter by using someone like Jamie Overton, who can contribute with both the bat and the ball. However, if they go with that option, they might have to leave out Matheesha Pathirana’s death-over bowling, which would be a major loss for the team.
“Similar to when they played Rizvi last year, they bought an extra batter. I think they could do it a little bit smarter and get more impact with someone like Jamie Overton. Obviously, they would lose the death skills of Pathirana,” he further stated.
Playing XII of CSK According to Mike Hesson
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Rahul Tripathi, Shivam Dube, Sam Curran, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni, Ravichandran Ashwin, Anshul Kamboj, Khaleel Ahmed, Matheesha Pathirana, Noor Ahmad/ Jamie Overton
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