The IPL will now experience its first three-year period where neither Chennai Super Kings nor Mumbai Indians win the title. Rahul Iyer examines the reasons behind the downfall of the two great dynasties.
“Good things come in threes” is a popular saying about luck. If something fortunate has happened twice, a third should be on the way. The rule of three is also a concept in media, suggesting groups of three (adjectives, books, movies) are satisfying or fit better together.
Three years is also the length of one IPL cycle, between mega-auctions where squads are reset to their maximum extent.
If you take any three-year period in the IPL, you will find at least one trophy being won by the Chennai Super Kings or the Mumbai Indians. This held true for a whopping 18 years – CSK’s elimination from the ongoing season on Thursday means 2024-2026 is the only period without a title going to either of these teams. (To their credit, they have committed fully to the bit; neither one has even made a final in this time.)
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MI are now trophyless for six seasons, and CSK for three – both stuck on five titles when not long ago, the dominant discussion was over which team would be the first to six. From 2010 to 2021, twelve seasons, they shared nine trophies despite CSK being banned for two of them.
The thing is, this was never supposed to happen.
How CSK and MI flew in the face of the IPL
From its very inception, the idea behind the IPL was to make it the most competitive league possible. No promotion and relegation – a closed shop, like American sports leagues. A fixed salary cap and open auction to fight it out for the best players. A periodic resetting of squads. At every step of the way, the league sought to ensure that no one team could dominate or create a dynasty. And yet, both these franchises overcame that.
Mumbai’s success through the 2010s came on the back of a stellar scouting system and investment in young Indian talent. The names are almost too many to list.
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19-year-old Manish Pandey stole the show for RCB with a century in 2009, but he was first signed by MI. The second they had the chance to sign Rohit Sharma from Deccan Chargers, they did so and never let go. Suryakumar Yadav came to prominence with KKR, but Mumbai were the first team to sign him.
The same franchise identified and nurtured India’s famed ‘KulCha’ duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal as teenagers. Ambati Rayudu remained a constant presence in their middle-order. When Jos Buttler arrived in the IPL, it was Mumbai who brought him in.
All this, even before you get to their greatest success stories: between 2013 and 2015, Mumbai found Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Krunal Pandya. All four players came from the neighbouring state of Gujarat, within the franchise’s catchment area. But precious few franchises were able to maximise their respective areas the way Mumbai did.
Even if all of them did not contribute to MI’s success, instead finding homes elsewhere, the fact remained that through the 2010s, this was Mumbai’s clearest competitive advantage. They were ahead of the curve, and it would take the rest of the league years to catch up.
On a parallel track, CSK’s domination all seemed to flow from one man: the inimitable, unflappable MS Dhoni. Players who arrived at CSK, especially the uncapped Indians, did not necessarily do so with any great pedigree. R Ashwin was one – he would go on to become an India great but was moulded by Dhoni and CSK before that.
Mohit Sharma, Ishwar Pandey, Sudeep Tyagi, Manpreet Gony, S Badrinath, Shadab Jakati, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur and so many, many more would never really be superstars. But they flourished under CSK and their leader who knew exactly what he wanted from them and how to get it.
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Stability and experience were the watchwords of the franchise, their 2018 ‘Dad’s Army’ squad the extreme extent of both as they picked an ageing squad and stuck with the underperforming Shane Watson only for him to deliver a match-winning century in the final. This has not been restricted to the players either. Stephen Fleming played for CSK in 2008, and since 2009 has been their head coach. He is also the head coach of their sister franchises in Texas and Johannesburg.
Dynasties like these do not collapse overnight. Over the years, both franchises’ cornerstones have been gradually eroded.
The slow decline of the IPL's two iconic teams
As the IPL grew, every franchise began to spread their scouting nets farther and wider. Mumbai were no longer the only shark on the prowl, and no longer had an almost-free run at the best Indian talent bubbling under the surface. They have had their successes – Tilak Varma and Naman Dhir are clearly talented – but no one has grown the way the likes of Bumrah, Hardik, et al did.
MI’s advantage here has been tempered by the fact that there is now so much more T20-ready talent out there, for other teams to access as well. Had they truly evolved with the times, they might have obtained the best of these younger players – a Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, for example, might have found the Wankhede to be his first port of call.
This is not the sole factor for their decline, of course – off-field chatter has dogged them ever since the controversial return and then elevation to captaincy of Hardik Pandya, not to mention that the other big Indian names of Bumrah, Suryakumar and Rohit Sharma have had their ups and downs. But all this makes the future look bleak as well.
CSK, meanwhile, seem to have encountered an identity crisis of their own. Their first season without a playoffs spot was 2020, the same one where MS Dhoni (in)famously said the franchise didn’t “see the spark” to push their younger players into the XI.
The two titles that came afterwards were still built on experience: Faf du Plessis, Suresh Raina, Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali, Ambati Rayudu, Imran Tahir, Devon Conway, Ravindra Jadeja, and Dwayne Bravo were all important parts.
When a franchise is tied so strongly to one personality, it’s no surprise that his stepping down from the captaincy is a natural turning point to look at. In the eyes of many, CSK have declined because Dhoni is no longer leading them. Naturally, this spotlight could not have been conducive to the new skipper, Ruturaj Gaikwad. But he was given the team at a good time, where he had a year to get a feel and evaluate the players before the 2025 mega-auction.
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At that auction, R Ashwin made an emotional return to the franchise and the likes of Vijay Shankar, Deepak Hooda and Rahul Tripathi – fringe India players in their prime – were expected to play key roles. All four were gone by the end of the season, which Dhoni ended up captaining a big chunk of after Gaikwad picked up an injury.
Since midway through the 2025 season, CSK have been frantically trying to repair the missteps of that auction. Their top-order now consists of Sanju Samson, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ayush Mhatre, Urvil Patel and Dewald Brevis. The first was traded, the second is the captain and the next three are all injury replacements since last season.
Just a year after they went all-in on signing the supposed gritty, tough and experienced domestic performers, CSK did a complete 180, splashing the cash on uncapped players Kartik Sharma and Prashant Veer. For no fault of their own, neither player particularly excelled, even if the former found some form towards the end of the tournament.
In short, what has hit CSK worse than Dhoni no longer captaining is the lack of a real succession plan. After a near-incestuous 18 years, the franchise seems unable to decipher whether their philosophies thus far were a genuine product of discussions among management, or tailor-made for one man.
The way forward for these franchises is not straightforward, and they will almost certainly have to endure another season of pain before the squads reset. To those of us on the outside, the IPL seems to be becoming more and more what Lalit Modi envisioned – the last four finals have been contested by seven different franchises, and the last two by four different teams. Each one, of course, will have their own dreams of dominating the way CSK and MI did; that is easier said than done.
But for now, it is goodbye and goodnight to the IPL’s first great dynasties.
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