Back among the runs, Ruturaj was never 'worried' about slow start to season

Has captaincy been weighing down Ruturaj Gaikwad? The answer was a resounding no on Monday (April 8) at Chepauk, when the Chennai Super Kings captain took his side home with an unbeaten 67, also his first half-century of the season.

Starting this season has been contrasting to the previous one, when his first three scores had read 92, 57 and 40*. But Ruturaj felt that the debate of him being short of runs this year is a lot more nuanced and he never felt "worried" about his form.

"There are certain things where the outside people don't really get to know," Gaikwad said. "Last year, three-four games that we started, it was in Ahmedabad, Chennai and Mumbai and again Chennai. All those games were on flat wickets. So I feel the pitch really matters a lot.

"First game [of IPL 2024] I thought I got a good start, got a good ball. Second game, same. I think I got a good start, had to accelerate a little bit [and] you tend to make a mistake there. And third game again, I felt I was in great shape, the second ball did not really do anything...

"Sometimes there are phases where you get good balls. Sometimes there are phases where you are slightly unlucky. Sometimes there are phases where things don't really fall in shape. [A] good shot, going into the fielder's hands. So you don't really need to think about that. I always felt I was in good shape, starting really well, good head space, so I wasn't really worried."

Ruturaj also added that batting as a captain is not something that felt new to him. He's been in those circumstances before and "nothing really changes" in his approach whether he is captain or not.

"And captaincy while batting is a totally different approach. Even when I was playing my first game, or the first fifty I scored for CSK, I think a similar kind of situation; we were chasing 140 and I always wanted to stay till the end and make sure I finish the innings... so pretty much the same. Nothing really changes even if I am captain or not."

With a win under the belt after a string of losses on the road, Ruturaj spoke candidly about captaincy and how he doesn't want to "change a single bit" of how the team has been captained since inception.