In a season that saw Chennai Super Kings failing to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in Indian Premier League’s (IPL) history, rumours started floating that CSK’s last league game of this year’s IPL could be MS Dhoni’s last in the tournament. But the former India captain put those rumours to rest on Sunday.
MS Dhoni announced his retirement from international cricket a few months ago. However, he was a part of the ongoing IPL tournament leading Chennai Super Kings for the 11th time. With 200 runs from 14 games, Dhoni failed to lead his side to glory unlike the other seasons. Once the best finisher in the white-ball cricket, Dhoni was woeful and on several occasions this IPL as he failed to carry his team past the target.
At the toss for the match between CSK vs KXIP on Sunday, when the former New Zealand cricketer Danny Morrison asked the CSK captain “will this be your last game ever in yellow?” Dhoni was quick with his two-word answer — “Definitely not”.
Kicking of the 13th edition of the IPL with a win against defenders Mumbai Indians, CSK’s inconsistent performance saw them languishing at the bottom half of the table with just 6 wins out of 14 games. With heavyweights like Shane Watson, Faf Du Plessis performing consistently well at the top order Chennai’s middle order failed to make a mark.
Three times IPL champions, Chennai Super Kings were the first to get eliminated from the ongoing IPL 2020 season. However, they managed to end the season with three consecutive wins with the last one against Kings XI Punjab. CSK won against KXIP today, on November 1, by 9 wickets.
Following the match, the world cup wining skipper quipped, “We will come back strong. That’s what we are known for. Yes, this has been a tough year. Yes, we are eighth on the table. This is one of the seasons where most of the teams played well or you can say, okay, one team played brilliantly, which is Mumbai Indians, and the rest all played badly to be in a big cluster.”
