India, April 19 -- Many players in this IPL edition were expected to take the tournament by storm and lift their team. For some key players, though, it has been an extended drought in the season's first half, which has in turn affected their teams' results.

Take Ruturaj Gaikwad. For Chennai Super Kings, the captain and opener was expected to be the batting mainstay. While he has yet to fully settle into captaincy and emerge from MS Dhoni's shadow, he had consistently shone as a batter for CSK, regularly scoring over 500 runs a season.

This edition he has failed to match those performances. It could be captaincy pressure or issues of rhythm as he had frequent injury breaks. The CSK team management will be hoping it is the latter, for wit...