Australians and New Zealanders were astounded in equal measure as Chennai showed why it considered to be such a cricket crazy city.

As the Chennai Super Kings started their training ahead of the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League, thousands of cricket fans turned up to catch their favourite stars.

The excitement that just a training session had generated amongst fans left quite the impression on the Chennai Super Kings coaching staff, especially Stephen Fleming and Michael Hussey.

Such was the excitement amongst the fans that the team and coaches had to make their way slowly through the crowds to enter the stadium for training.

Batting coach Hussey later took to Twitter to share the scenes with a caption saying, “Turning up to training in Chennai.”

Head coach Stephen Fleming too was taken aback by the dedication of the fans as he shared an image of the hoardes of fans surrounding the team bus.

“Big crowd gathering just for training!! So much excitement from the CSK fans,” Fleming wrote in his tweet.

Chennai Super Kings are returning to the IPL after serving a two-year suspension after being involved in a spot-fixing controversy. Chennai fans have had to bide their time as their favourite team served their suspension. To see such devotion and excitement from the fans is no surprise after even skipper MS Dhoni got emotional on the team’s return.

In a video posted by a Chennai Super Kings fan group, the India stalwart was seen getting visibly emotional as he talked about the return of the franchise.

Just over a week remains before the 11th edition of the IPL gets underway. Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings will take on Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians in the opening match of the competition on April 7.