Nobody saw it coming. Some reported Eoin Morgan, some said Hemang Badani, a few said Michael Hussey, but none called Zaheer Khan. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have, in the usual MS Dhoni style, pulled out a brilliant, discreet deal to sign one of India’s legendary cricketers to be their head coach.
With it, the five-time champions are officially entering a new era for their team. It’s a much-needed refresh for a side that had failed to qualify for three consecutive playoffs. While other teams have survived worse, the standards are high at CSK, as they should be, and playoff qualifications have been the bare minimum.
Below, we discuss why Zaheer’s move to the team makes sense and why it has the potential to bring the glory days back.
#3 Innovation-first
Stephen Fleming
was a good coach for CSK. You don’t win five titles without being one.
However, he was always seen as more of a man-manager than a tactician. Both aspects are crucial for coaching, and Fleming needed Dhoni, more often than not, to be the strategy genius.
With Dhoni’s career uncertain, it was about time that CSK hired someone who could do both. Zaheer doesn’t have any coaching experience, but he has worked as a global head of cricket for Mumbai Indians — a position not to be taken lightly — and a mentor at Lucknow Super Giants.
Fleming’s last few years at the franchise were marked by murmurs of how he had not evolved with the T20 format, and how his ideas still reflected a bit of 2009, at least more than acceptable levels. Zaheer, on the other hand, has the potential to be a more modern coach.
“What you can expect is innovation, out of the box thinking, the fight, the hunger,” he said about his LSG team in 2025. “And I think, you know, that sums up us as a team.”
Zaheer retired seven years after Fleming and played much more IPL than the New Zealander. There’s a reason why Fleming became a Test coach after leaving the CSK job — the franchise now seems to have realised that the two formats, and their needs, couldn’t be more different and picked a T20-first man.
#2 No compromise on man-management
CSK see Zaheer as a calm and composed figure, just like Fleming. And his tactical potential doesn’t mean there would be a compromise on his man-management.
“I think I became a better bowler with his advice,” Khaleel Ahmed, who’s currently with CSK, said in 2018. “I have spent a lot of time with Zaheer bhai during my two-year stint at the Delhi Daredevils. We played in different conditions during IPL and he always kept discussing on how to bowl on different surfaces.”
The baseline with signing Zaheer would be a helping hand for bowlers. He has a long history of improving players and CSK could do quite well with it because they have started to build a young contingent. It will mean that the franchise won’t need to go looking for someone else to replace the warm hand that Fleming provided.
#Good working relationship with MS Dhoni
Dhoni is still the king at CSK. He didn’t play a single game last year, hardly even set foot at Chepauk, but his calls mattered more than anyone else. Some within the circles of the franchise believed that it was his tactical nous that kept CSK going, with Fleming’s role quite limited — yet their partnership formed the foundation of the team’s success, which made it non-negotiable.
According to The Indian Express, Zaheer was Dhoni’s first choice for the job, which is no surprise.
“For me, Zaheer is the Sachin Tendulkar of the Indian bowling attack. He has been the leader of the bowling unit for a number of years now,” Dhoni said during their playing days.
It might need some time to come to fruition but if CSK give him that, Dhoni and Zaheer could recreate some of the India magic at Chepauk.
