IPL 2025: MS Dhoni love story, to be continued at CSK | Cricket Information – The Occasions of India

In a pre-season promotional advert, Sanju Samson is seen telling MS Dhoni {that a} new 13-year-old boy within the Rajasthan Royals squad will win an IPL title earlier than the Chennai Tremendous Kings legend retires! The tongue-in-cheek remark will resonate with followers.
“Will this be Dhoni’s final IPL?” That’s a query round which a cottage business has sprung up over the previous couple of IPL seasons. There’s no definitive reply to that query but. Nobody precisely is aware of when it’s going to occur. And by now, Dhoni himself has began having fun with this cat-and-mouse recreation. He likes to provide you with cryptic feedback about his “previous couple of years in cricket” right here and there, sending everybody in a tizzy.
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After his worldwide retirement means again in Aug 2020, the 43-year-old’s batting prowess has been understandably on the wane. His physique, fairly clearly, struggles to take the damage and tear of the two-month grind that’s the IPL. Within the final two years, he largely restricted himself to 10-ball cameos, by which he seemed to clear the fence.

Whereas he has struggled to manoeuvre the strike in opposition to spinners within the center overs, his knees aren’t ok to go for these super-quick singles that he was a grasp of in his prime.
However then, that’s simply a part of the narrative. The IPL isn’t just about batting, bowling or fielding abilities. Dhoni, although, stays an impressive wicketkeeper. His expertise and delicate fielding modifications play an enormous function. There’s completely little question no person understands the on-field dynamics in an IPL recreation higher than Dhoni.
The subject of Dhoni’s restricted game-time typically comes up in conversations with Chennai Tremendous Kings officers. Their customary reply is, “You may by no means purchase expertise out there. It’s as much as Dhoni to determine when he desires to go.”

There’s one factor, nevertheless, that must be made clear — Dhoni doesn’t enable himself to be a legal responsibility on the sphere. If we take a look at his IPL 2024 stats, we are going to see that he has scored solely 167 runs in 14 video games, however his common is 53.66 and strike-rate a ridiculous 220.54.
In reality, the worry issue that Dhoni nonetheless generates on the back-end of an innings is unmatched. If we return to CSK’s final recreation in opposition to RCB in 2024, Dhoni virtually pulled off a miracle chasing an enormous rating, till the ball needed to be modified when a six that he hit off left-arm pacer Yash Dayal within the twentieth over vanished outdoors the bottom. The brand new ball was dry and exhausting, Dayal obtained some additional bounce and induced an edge off Dhoni’s bat that completed CSK’s hopes of qualifying for the playoffs.
Had CSK made the last-four stage, there was a risk that it may have been Dhoni’s last IPL outing. The qualifier and the ultimate had been in Chennai and Dhoni would have gotten an opportunity to maintain a promise that he had made to his followers just a few years in the past: “I’ll play my final IPL match on the MA Chidambaram Stadium.” Dhoni doesn’t all the time make guarantees, but when he does, he tries to maintain them.

The IPL administration, too, has performed its half to make sure Dhoni will get a shot at fulfilling his promise. They tweaked a retention rule, permitting a participant who retired from worldwide cricket 5 years in the past to be retained for Rs 4 crore forward of the large public sale. The beneficiary, clearly, was CSK and Dhoni.
The legend, although, is making an attempt his finest to be in the very best form for this IPL. He was one of many first to reach in Chennai a few month in the past and has been coaching exhausting. The information that filters out of the camp means that his physique is in higher form than the place it was final yr. The batting, too, isn’t going badly.

New CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad, too, has settled in effectively and there appears to be a core in place for the subsequent few years. Nonetheless, Dhoni stays the ‘tremendous boss’ of the crew. Come the nineteenth over of a decent recreation, it’s going to nonetheless be MSD making these subject modifications and Gaikwad will in all probability man the long-off boundary.
Not that the CSK diehards will thoughts one bit. It’s a love story that they don’t wish to finish, come what could.