CSK's trade of Jadeja and Curran for Sanju Samson is already looking like a masterstroke
Chennai Super Kings traded Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran to Rajasthan Royals for Sanju Samson in the run-up to IPL 2026 and it felt, at the time, like the sort of deal that would take a season to judge properly. Five matches in, it already looks like one of the smartest pieces of IPL business of the last decade, and the numbers only tell part of the story.
Samson’s unbeaten 115 at Chepauk on Saturday night against Delhi Capitals was the kind of knock CSK have been waiting years for somebody other than Dhoni to produce on that ground. He got to his half-century off 26 balls, his century off 52, and stayed unbeaten on 115 from a knock laced with 15 fours and four sixes. It was CSK’s first win of the season. On a table where they had lost three, the cricketer who delivered that win was trading his old pink-and-blue kit for the new one.
The trade itself looked bold at the time
Jadeja and Curran are not just good players. Jadeja is a CSK icon of roughly a decade’s standing, a man who has twice been bought back by the franchise for eye-watering fees, and a two-format India all-rounder whose fingerprints are on three IPL titles. Curran was the Most Valuable Player of the 2022 T20 World Cup and a pick in the last mega auction. Letting both go in one deal for a 31-year-old wicketkeeper was not the obvious choice.
What CSK saw, though, was a post-Dhoni problem that nobody in the existing squad was solving. Ruturaj Gaikwad was already the Test-match style captain, not the finisher with the gloves. MS Dhoni at 44 could not be leaned on to play a full season. Samson fitted a specific gap that no amount of Jadeja runs or Curran overs could plug. CSK paid for that fit with two players who were, in truth, getting more expensive and less productive every year.
The early evidence is compelling
Samson has been keeping wicket for CSK and batting in the top order. He has shouldered the leadership load with Dhoni and Gaikwad both missing games. He has been the team’s best batter across the opening five matches, and the way he chose to celebrate his century at Chepauk, with a Rajinikanth-style flourish in front of a home crowd that had taken a while to accept him, told its own story. The bond is forming.
The knock itself was also the highest individual score ever made by a designated CSK wicketkeeper, clearing MS Dhoni’s previous best of 84. That is the sort of record that reframes a signing. You don’t replace Dhoni as a cricketer, he is not a like-for-like template for anyone, but you can take a number he held for years and quietly push it further along. Samson did that in his fourth innings in the yellow shirt.
Rajasthan’s side of the deal has been messier
The other half of the ledger is not as kind to Rajasthan Royals. Jadeja has had a quiet opening few weeks back with the franchise that gave him his IPL break, and Curran’s bowling numbers have been ordinary. RR’s start was excellent largely because of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Dhruv Jurel and the bowling unit, not because the returning CSK duo lit the place up. Then came Monday’s collapse against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and the first tremor in what had looked like a procession.
None of that is a disaster for Rajasthan. Both players still have time. But the wider question, which felt theoretical in January, is now live: did RR sell the best wicketkeeper-batter in their history too cheaply? On current evidence, the answer is closer to yes than anyone at the franchise would like to admit.
What it could mean for the rest of the season
There is a long IPL campaign still to run, and CSK’s ninth place in the table is not going to fix itself on the back of one Samson century. But the thing that looked most broken about this side coming into the tournament, the idea that they had no cricketer other than an injured 44-year-old capable of carrying them home on a big night, is not quite so broken anymore. If Samson keeps doing this, the trade stops being a story about what was given up and starts being a story about what was bought.
I would not bet against Chennai working their way back into the playoff conversation if he plays even eight more innings at this level. That is the kind of range a prime wicketkeeper-batter gives you at the top of the order. The trade was supposed to be a long-term bet on Dhoni’s successor. It may turn out to have been a short-term bet too, and that is where it starts looking genuinely clever rather than just brave.
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