CSK are currently placed sixth in the IPL 2026 points table.
The five-time champions, Chennai Super Kings (CSK), will have to find a lot of answers in the second-half of the IPL 2026 to keep their qualification hopes alive for the playoffs. The team is already struggling with only three wins in eight fixtures so far. Amidst this, a few major injury blows to the key CSK players have also hurt the side’s momentum in the ongoing edition.
After losing seamer Khaleel Ahmed due to a quadriceps injury, the franchise’s star batter Ayush Mhatre also got sidelined from the remainder of the IPL 2026 with a hamstring tear. The Mumbai prodigy was looking in sublime touch and was crucial for the Men in Yellow’s IPL 2026 campaign.
Mhatre had put up 201 runs in six matches at a blistering strike rate of 177.87, including two fifty-plus knocks, to become the second-highest run-getter for CSK so far. Though CSK have recently roped in the former Mumbai Indians’ (MI) pacer Akash Madhwal as the 19-year-old’s replacement, they still need a batter to fill in the void in their squad.
As per a Times of India source, the Chennai management has called up another Mumbai all-rounder, Ayush Vartak, for their IPL 2026 mid-season trial. Notably, the 21-year-old is yet to play for the Mumbai senior team. However, the Parsee Gymkhana player recently led Mumbai’s Under-23 side in the first phase of the Col CK Nayudu Trophy in the latest edition.
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The player had also put on a great display in the Men’s State A Trophy 2025, scoring 363 runs in six appearances. Vartak is also well known for his big-hitting abilities, as he amassed a total of 26 maximums in the tournament, which was the second-highest after the Lucknow Super Giants’ (LSG) Mukul Chaudhary. He was also Mumbai’s leading run-getter in the Col CK Nayudu Trophy 2024-25, notching up 770 runs in nine fixtures, laced with three hundreds.
Earlier, they had also spent a massive amount of their purse on young talents like Kartik Sharma and Prashant Veer in the IPL 2026 mini auction, making both of them the joint-most expensive uncapped players in the history of the tournament. Amidst a transition in their core, roping in the promising youngster might prove to be a key move for CSK.
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