MS Dhoni has handed over the captaincy of Chennai Super Kings to Ravindra Jadeja, but will carry on as a player for one more season. Sources indicated that Dhoni will mentor Jadeja on the field and will take decisions when necessary. “Dhoni’s captaincy magic has made the difference for us in many games. When he is on the field, he will obviously be one of the key decision-makers, even though the official baton will be with Jadeja,” a CSK source said.
Dhoni had been a captain of the Indian team for a decade and won all the white-ball ICC events there to be won, but the Jharkhand man’s deep connect with his franchise has probably outshone all his international achievements.
When the team was in exile for two seasons due to match-fixing scandal, and Dhoni was playing for Pune Supergiant, he said time and again that his heart would always be with CSK. It was probably this absence that Dhoni’s bond with CSK and its fans grew even stronger. And he kept his word once the team returned to the fold in 2018. Even as his batting faltered, there was never a doubt who would be leading CSK into one of their best phases, winning two titles and losing one on the last ball.
But then, Dhoni knows when it’s time to move on. If it was solely left to him, he might not have played this IPL, but there is the compulsion of mentoring a team in its transition. “He probably feels that for one season it’s necessary to guide the ship from inside the ground,” the source added.
