page_title: Chennai Super Kings
section_title: 2008–2009: First seasons
hierarchical_section_title: Chennai Super Kings / Team history / 2008–2009: First seasons
caption_attribution_description: A photo of a match between Chennai SuperKings and Kolkata Knightriders during the DLF IPL T20 tournament
context_page_description: The Chennai Super Kings are a franchise cricket team based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, which plays in the Indian Premier League. Founded in 2008, the team plays its home matches at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The team served a two-year suspension from the IPL starting July 2015 for the alleged involvement of their owners in the 2013 IPL betting case, and won the title in its comeback season. The team is captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coached by Stephen Fleming.
  The Super Kings have lifted the IPL title thrice, and has the highest win percentage among all teams in the IPL. They hold the records of most appearances in the playoffs and the Final of the IPL. They are the only IPL team to qualify for the playoff stage in each edition of their appearance in the league. In addition, they have also won the Champions League Twenty20 in 2010 and 2014. The brand value of the Super Kings in 2019 is estimated to be around ₹732 crore, making them the second-most valuable IPL franchise, after Mumbai Indians.
context_section_description: During the first player auctions for the inaugural IPL season conducted in January 2008, the Chennai franchise bought a number of contemporary star cricketers such as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Matthew Hayden, Stephen Fleming, Muttiah Muralitharan and Michael Hussey. Dhoni became the costliest player of the auction, as the Chennai franchise bought him for $1.5 million. The franchise named Dhoni as the captain of the team and appointed Kepler Wessels as the head coach. They played their first game on 19 April 2008 against Kings XI Punjab at Mohali. The Super Kings won the game by 33 runs after posting 240/5 in 20 overs, which was the highest total of the tournament, a record surpassed by themselves in 2010. The Super Kings ended the league stage with eight wins from 14 games and finished third on the points table. They beat the Kings XI Punjab by 9 wickets in the semifinal. The Super Kings faced the Rajasthan Royals in the final of the IPL at Mumbai. Batting first, the Super Kings scored 163/5 in 20 overs and lost the game by 3 wickets off the final delivery of the match. They also earned a spot in the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 along with Rajasthan, but the tournament was cancelled due to the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the Super Kings, along with Rajasthan, received $5 million each as compensation. Fleming, who had decided to retire from all forms of the game after the first season of the IPL, took over as the coach of the Super Kings team from Wessels for the next season which was to be held in South Africa.
  For the 2009 season, the Super Kings bought English all-rounder Andrew Flintoff for $1.55 million at the auction making him the highest-paid IPL cricketer along with English teammate Kevin Pietersen who was bought for the same amount by Royal Challengers Bangalore. However, Flintoff played only 3 matches for them before suffering a knee injury that ruled him out of the season. The Super Kings were also without the services of Hussey who had decided to skip the IPL season to focus on The Ashes. The Super Kings finished with 17 points from 14 matches and earned a second place at the league table. However, at the semi-finals, their hopes of entering the final for a second time were crushed by the Royal Challengers who beat them by 6 wickets. The Super Kings opener Matthew Hayden, who scored 572 runs in 12 innings with 5 half-centuries at an average of 52 and strike-rate of 145, won the Orange Cap for the leading run-scorer of the season and was also adjudged Player of the Tournament.
caption: Chennai Super Kings playing the Kolkata Knight Riders at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in the 2008 Indian Premier League.
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