Former Chennai Super Kings player Harbhajan Singh has alleged that the franchise intentionally didn’t buy good players at the mega auction as they were working on someone’s instructions. He commented after the five-time champions became the first team to be eliminated from the playoff race in IPL 2025. The hosts lost to Punjab Kings by 4 wickets at Chepauk, which was their eighth defeat of the 18th season.

Ambati Rayudu and several others have slammed the team for their shocking performance in the auction, where money was spent on R Ashwin, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Rachin Ravindra and many more. However, they failed to give their best for the Men in Yellow. Players like KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and Mohammed Siraj were up for grabs, but CSK’s team management didn’t show any interest.

“People think MS Dhoni carries a winning injection in his pocket, but they should understand the current squad is not good enough to fight for the title. Earlier, they had a champion team,” Harbhajan Singh said on the broadcasting channel.

“They had a bad auction. I heard from three-four people close to the Chennai Super Kings that they intentionally didn’t buy good players in a mega auction. The people representing CSK ignored the suggestions given to them by some cricketers. I don’t know whose instructions they were working on,” he added.

Chennai were presented by CEO Kashinath Viswanathan and head coach Stephen Fleming during the bidding process.