IPL 2023: Why Chennai Super Kings’ fans are overcome with emotion

Chennai Super Kings’ victory and MS Dhoni’s captaincy on the field in IPL 2023 have pleased fans of the men in yellow

The Chennai Super Kings is not a team. It’s an emotion.

So say thousands of fans from Tamil Nadu who boarded trains and flights, and battled rains and traffic to watch their favourite men in yellow lift the IPL 2023 trophy. A last-ball nail-biting thriller in the rain-affected final was more than an emotional roller-coaster for the many CSK fans who had gathered to catch a glimpse of ‘Thala’ Dhoni. We speak to a few fans to gauge the excitement:

I had goosebumps after CSK’s win. It gave me so much happiness.

The last few days have been so eventful for many of us who travelled from Chennai to Ahmedabad to watch the match. Rain upset our plans on Sunday evening - we stayed back in the hotel, but I heard stories of many passionate cricket fans who slept in railway stations and malls to watch the live action.

On the evening of the final, the whole stadium was bathed in a sea of yellow, with fans from not just Tamil Nadu but across the world. It was crazy to watch something like that in the home ground of the Gujarat Titans. Most of them had come in the hope of watching one man: MS Dhoni.

The best moment, for me, was when Dhoni lifted Jadeja and cried. It showed us what this win meant for him. I had promised myself that if CSK wins, I’d turn vegetarian for a month. I now have to plan how to execute that!

Who could have imagined that a T-20 game would be played over three days? And, who could have imagined that, at the end of it, Captain Cool Dhoni would turn a tad emotional, probably for the first time ever?