in 2011, as two new teams were added to the ipl, the ipl governing council declared that each franchise could retain a maximum of four players of their squad, only three of whom can be indian players, and the rest of the international players would be put in the mega-auction. the chennai franchise, keen to have the same set of core players, retained captain ms dhoni, vice-captain suresh raina, murali vijay and all-rounder albie morkel for a total of $4.5 million. at the auction, they bought back some of their star players of previous seasons such as hussey, ashwin, bollinger and subramaniam badrinath. in the 2011 ipl, they lost three of their first five games which placed them at the bottom of the ten-team points table.but then, they went on to win seven of their next eight games to finish second and register a spot in the knockout stages. they faced the top-ranked team royal challengers bangalore in the qualifying final which they won by 6 wickets thanks to an unbeaten 73 from suresh raina.