A group of fans on social media claims that the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) engaged in ball-tampering during their IPL 2025 El Clasico match against the Mumbai Indians (MI) on March 23, Sunday. A now-viral video shows Khaleel Ahmed and CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad exchanging objects just before the left-arm bowler was about to deliver his next ball.
The Chennai Super Kings captain approaches Khaleel, who produces something from his left pants pocket. Ruturaj was seen chatting with Khaleel while holding the ball and thus was not visible to the camera. As they turned to face the camera, Khaleel took the ball from Ruturaj and handed him back an object. Both men then went separate ways with Gaikwad apparently putting something in his pocket. However, the authenticity of the video is yet to be verified.
Chennai won a nail-biter against MI in its first IPL 2025 season. Winning the toss, CSK put MI in to bat, and it paid off when Khaleel got rid of Rohit Sharma with the fourth ball of the innings, then sent Ryan Rickleton packing in his next over.
Will Jacks had a short stay. Chennai Super Kings was at that point well on the way to dominating Mumbai Indians. Nevertheless, a partnership of 50 runs between Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma steadied the innings. Momentum shifted soon when Noor Ahmad came. He changed the fortunes of MI with his bowling.
Suryakumar’s wicket fell to him, with the awesome stumping by MS Dhoni making it possible, and he took four wickets that day. MI managed only to score 155 runs in their designated 20 overs, which in the end proved to be an insufficient score. CSK made the chase look easy, with half-centuries to Rachin Ravindra and Ruturaj Gaikwad, eventually securing the first win of the season.
