Courtesy: BCCI/IPL
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) began their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 campaign with a bang as they defeated big rivals Mumbai Indians (MI) by four wickets with five balls to spare at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Sunday, March 23. Shortly after the completion of the match, the cameras caught a hilarious scene of MS Dhoni playfully hitting his former CSK teammate Deepak Chahar with the bat on his backside.
Notably, after being a part of CSK for the last few years, Deepak Chahar was picked up by MI for a whopping INR 9.25 crore contract at the IPL 2025 mega auction despite not playing regular cricket due to fitness issues. During his time in Chennai, Chahar used to have a love-hate relationship so to speak with Dhoni, depending on the performance in matches under the latter’s captaincy, which delivered five IPL titles for CSK.
In the first match of the new IPL season in Chennai, Deepak Chahar played well for MI with the bat, scoring 28 runs in just 15 balls with two fours and two sixes, to ensure that they posted a respectable total of 155/9 in their allotted overs. The bowling all-rounder also picked up the key wicket of Rahul Tripathi in the power play stage, but his exploits weren’t enough for MI as CSK chased down the runs with relative ease.
Watch the video here:
MI will host CSK in reverse fixture in IPL 2025 on April 20 at Wankhede Stadium
During the latter stages of the IPL 2025 contest, when MS Dhoni came out to bat to a rocking reception of his adoring fans in Chennai, Deepak Chahar tried to get into the ear of his former teammate, asking captain Surykumar Yadav to allow him to field close to the bat. But after CSK got across the finishing line, when the players of both teams had lined-up to shake hands in respect, Dhoni had no hesitation in hitting Chahar with bat, but there was no malice involved whatsoever.
The reverse fixture between MI and CSK in the IPL 2025 will happen on Sunday, April 20, at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, where the fans might get the next instalment of the fun banter between MS Dhoni and Deepak Chahar.
