Former KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir has backed Chennai Super Kings‘ retention policy ahead of the IPL 2021 auctions slated to be held in February. MS Dhoni’s side was expected to revamp their side totally and release a lot of their players. However, in the end, they only released five players. CSK released Piyush Chawla, Kedar Jadhav, Harbhajan Singh, Monu Singh, and Murali Vijay while trading Robin Uthappa from Rajasthan Royals.
In the latest episode of Cricket Connected show on Star Sports, Gautam Gambhir shared his views on CSK’s strategy and said they did the right thing by not releasing a lot of players.
“I feel it is the right strategy. Overall revamp does not mean that you change the entire team. And if you see CSK’s season, it was not that bad a season. Just because there are a lot of expectations from CSK, they had qualified for the playoffs every time, probably because of that we were asking if they need an overall revamp,” said Gambhir.
The left-hander then compared CSK’s retention strategy to that of Royal Challengers Bangalore RCB released 10 players at the retention window including names like Aaron Finch, Chris Morris and Moeen Ali.
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MS Dhoni Does Not Think Too far Ahead: Gautam Gambhir
“This is MS Dhoni’s specialty. I have always said that MS Dhoni does not think too far ahead. He only thinks about building the team for a particular season and that is the difference between CSK and RCB,” said Gambhir.
People are saying that CSK had a very bad season and need an overall revamp but despite that, they have left only five players. On the other hand, RCB have left ten players even after qualifying for the playoffs. CSK’s success story in the IPL is a balanced mind,” he added.
Gautam Gambhir’s former IPL side KKR also released just five players ahead of the auction and retained the core of the side built around last four to five years.
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