Is a Chetta (meaning elder brother in Malayali) rule about to begin in Chennai Super Kings? The speculation is slowly gaining ground as Sanju Samson has found his mojo in the yellow shirt after a tentative start to the season – easing his way to his second century of IPL 2026 as his new team prevailed in the El Clasico of IPL against Mumbai Indians on Thursday.

While the wicketkeeper-batter seems to be carrying on from where he had left off in the T20 World Cup, there is a school of thought which feels Samson has what it takes to be the successor to the great Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captain. The talismanic former skipper is back in the thick of things after a calf strain and is in line to make an appearance in their next away game against Gujarat Titans on Sunday, but social media clips show MSD is happily playing the mentor to the 31-year-old.

The CSK management are known for their aversion to any knee-jerk changes – what with them installing a younger Ruturaj Gaikwad as the new captain from 2024 season. The choice must have had a buy-in from Dhoni but then, that was a phase when the Ravindra Jadeja experiment had failed and it looked worthwhile to invest in an emerging Indian talent like Ruturaj. However, the arrival of Samson has created a viable alternative as he brings in the experience of leading Rajasthan Royals for four seasons between 2021 and 2024.

 In his popular podcast, Ravi Ashwin – who does know a thing or two about the CSK mindset – said: ‘’The mantle passing over, if you ask me, I mean, I’m no astrologer but all I can tell you is I do see Sanju captaining CSK at some stage. Don’t know when, but I do see that happening. The one thing I wouldn’t want to risk upon or don’t want Sanju is him stepping into someone’s shoes. You don’t have to really step into anybody’s legacy. We don’t necessarily need to live like that or play like that.’’

Interestingly enough, Samson combined the demand of batting deep in their innings as well as maintain it’s momentum – a factor which contributed to them reaching a 200-plus total despite none of the other batters managing to cross even the 25-run mark. Asked about it, he attributed to a sense of responsibility: ‘’We actually kept on losing wickets here and there. Whenever we wanted to go big, I think we were losing a few wickets. So, I thought it’s very important for a settled batsman to stay until the end. That's what I tried and that’s what happened today.

‘’The game tells you what to do. You don’t have to come with a preconceived mindset and you don't have to be premeditating, telling yourself this is how I play or this is what I want to do.

‘’With the experience I have, the team definitely comes first. You can say: this is the way I play and that you might get out or you might not, but with the experience and the responsibility shown in me, it is my duty to understand the match situation and what the team demands, putting that first and then planning my game around it,’’ he said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

The Kerala man is now third in race for the Orange Cap with 293 runs from seven matches - following Abhishek Sharma (323) and Heinrich Klaasen (320). Irrespective of whether he eventually emerges the topscorer or not, CSK has found the leader of their batting unit. 

Tilak Varma may be only 23, but he was very much among the chosen five—alongwith Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah—to have been retained by Mumbai Indians when they rebooted in the last mega auction. He showed a maturity far beyond his age to adapt his batting as per the match situation since his IPL debut in 2022. The only thing missing in his IPL track record till Monday, 20 April, was a century.

And it came when the team needed it the most against a consistent Gujarat Titans at the later’s fortress—ending a four-match losing streak for the five-time champs. The pressure of losing that many matches in a row in IPL can often make the most successful of teams look like a divided camp—and it was not an exception with the Mumbai Indians. A seventh spot on the table, with two wins from six matches, may not look as healthy as the team would like to be but it at least gives them a plank to bounce back.

A 45-ball century—joint fastest for MI with Sri Lankan legend Sanath Jayasuriya achieving it in the inaugural 2008 edition—must have come as a huge relief for Tilak who had scraped together 43 runs from previous five innings. He followed the time-tested method of spending sometime in the middle, scoring only 17 runs from the first 20 balls before exploding at the backend of the innings.       

‘’It (101 not out) was very important for the team and for me,’’ Tilak told the broadcasters. ‘’Over the last four or five games, the one thing constantly running through my head was that I hadn’t spent much time in the middle and hadn’t faced many balls, so my aim was to spend some time at the wicket and then adapt according to the team's situation.’’

 Explaining his approach, Tilak said he assessed the pitch early and focused on straight hitting to counter the slow nature of the wicket. ‘’Whenever MI comes to Ahmedabad, they usually give us a black soil wicket, which is a bit slow in nature. It’s not that our batters cannot adapt, but we know what we can do if there is more bounce,’’ said Tilak, a key member of the Men in Blue in T20 format with a T20 World Cup and Asia Cup already on his shelves.

 ‘’Since it was slow and low, we had to adjust and try to hit straight. There wasn’t much bounce, so playing across the line to deliveries in line with the stumps was risky. I decided to hit straighter and I read the conditions well; thankfully, I was able to score some runs.’’

While his lacklusture batting form possibly saw him coming in at number five, which needed him to explode in the last six overs, Tilak was candid enough to say that his preferred position is number three. ‘’Personally, I like batting at number three a lot. However, I am happy to bat wherever the team needs me because since childhood, I have practised in a way that allows me to play confidently in any position. But if someone asks me, I would always say number three.’’

With the monkey off his back with the runs flowing off his bat, Tilak was optimistic about a turnaround though there is now a major question mark over Suryakumar Yadav’s dry run. ‘’We know what we are capable of, having several World Cup winners in the side, experienced players, and the skills we possess. If we execute well, we can be unstoppable. So it is important to keep our heads down and continue working hard," he said.