Chennai Super Kings endured their worst season in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) crashing out of the group stages. In the wake of this, skipper MS Dhoni has hinted massive changes in the squad ahead of IPL 2021. And former India cricketer Sanjay Bangar feels Dhoni will not lead CSK next year and will only play as a wicket-keeper batsman.
Meanwhile, Chennai were marred with problems ever since the team landed in the UAE to feature in IPL 2020. Senior cricketers Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh pulled out of the competition owing to personal reasons before 13 members of the squad were diagnosed with COVID-19.
The off-field controversies took a massive toll on the performance on the players and Chennai Super Kings never looked like themselves. On top of that, skipper MS Dhoni, who was making a comeback after more than a year, was also just a shadow of his old self. He struggled to get going with the down which put immense pressure on the lower-order in the absence of their main man Suresh Raina.
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MS Dhoni will not captain CSK in IPL 2021
Chennai managed to secure only six wins from their 14 games with two wins coming from their last two matches. In the wake of it, MS Dhoni had hinted they will make massive changes in the squad and change the core group which only consisted of veteran players.
And now, Sanjay Bangar has hinted that Dhoni might not lead CSK in IPL 2021. The former India batting coach took a cue out of Dhoni’s decision to quit Test captaincy for Team India in 2014 and then stepping down as captain from limited-overs cricket in 2017 to hand over the reins to Virat Kohli to back his statement.
“As far as I know, MS Dhoni might have thought after 2011 if he should be continuing to captain the Indian team but he knew that India had quite a few tough encounters after that, we had to go and play in England and Australia and at that time there was no captaincy candidate ready, so he only handled that burden and at the right time he handed over the captaincy to Virat Kohli and he also played after that,” Bangar said on Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected.
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Faf du Plessis can lead CSK – Sanjay Bangar
“So as far as I can understand, I feel that MS Dhoni may not be the captain next year and may play as a player and give the captaincy at this stage to Faf du Plessis for the transition to happen under Faf du Plessis,” said Bangar.