By Manoj 
Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have started rebuilding their coaching setup for the 2027 Indian Premier League (IPL) season, announcing former India pacer Zaheer Khan as the new head coach of the franchise and ex-CSK cricketer Mohit Sharma will be joining CSK as bowling coach.
Zaheer Khan will replace Stephen Fleming, who has been a part of CSK’s coaching set-up since 2009. Fleming finished up after the 2026 season with his long reign over the franchise and started another job in England cricket.
Zaheer, a former international cricketer and cricket administrator has tremendous experience with the times up to October 2023 of data. He took 610 wickets while playing for India across formats in his playing career. He played 100 matches in the IPL for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals and had a tally of 102 wickets at an average of 27.27.
Zaheer transitioned into coaching and cricket management, following his retirement from IPL in 2017. He joined the Mumbai Indians in senior cricket operations before becoming their head of global development. He had also been nominated for the post of mentor of Lucknow Super Giants before IPL 2025.
Well, Zaheer has now gone into assembling his support staff at CSK and Mohit Sharma looks to be the first major news. Mohit will step in for Eric Simmons as CSK’s bowling coach. The former pacer has had a very solid IPL career playing for CSK across four seasons previously.
In his stint with the CSK franchise, Mohit represented the Yellow Brigade in 48 IPL matches and also featured in 10 Champions League T20 matches for the Chennai based side. He took part in eight T20Is for India and went on to play competitive cricket until the 2025 IPL season, before retiring from all formats of the game in December 2025.
Though the final agreement was still being worked on at the time of writing, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan has gone on record to say that Mohit is due to take over in a role alongside Zaheer.
The franchise has also not decided on its batting coach for IPL 2027. Hussey last served as CSK’s batting coach until the 2026 season but was among the names that was reportedly in contention for the head coach role while CSK were yet to arrive on a decision over multiple candidates.
Zaheer, Mohit take on the new responsibility with CSK eyeing a major revamp in their coaching setup heading into IPL 2027.