Chennai Super Kings although tried their hands to acquire Sam Curran during the IPL 2023 mini-auction on Friday in Kochi, they eventually got England Test captain Ben Stokes for a whopping INR 16.25 crore.
However, Chennai have been in search of a new captain for a long to replace the veteran captain MS Dhoni. They gave the chance to Ravindra Jadeja last season with Dhoni stepping down from the captaincy role just two days before the start of the season. But their move backfired as CSK failed to do well and placed at the bottom end of the table, with Jadeja struggling with form under pressure as well. However, Dhoni took over the role again last year and they started doing well too.
With Ben Stokes being bought by Chennai Super Kings for the IPL 2023 season, fans believe that it was a masterstroke from none other than MS Dhoni who picked his successor as well.
📽️ @ChennaiIPL win the bidding battle to bring @benstokes38 on board for INR 16.25 crore👍 #TATAIPLAuction @TataCompanies pic.twitter.com/mtV5YNr8i3
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) December 23, 2022
Meanwhile, Ben Stokes was the second player CSK bought at the end of the first two sets at the IPL 2023 auction. They had bought Ajinkya Rahane at his base price of INR 50 lakh as well. Meanwhile, IPL 2023 will also be the second time when MS Dhoni, Rahane and Stokes will be playing for the same team, having earlier played together for the presently-defunct Rising Pune Supergiants way back in 2017, when the team had reached the final as well.
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