Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni had a forgettable Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 season as the former India cricketer failed with the bat as well as with his captaincy.
In his team’s penultimate match of the season, the wicketkeeper-batsman from Jharkhand was clean bowled by Kolkata Knight Riders’ spinner Varun Chakravarthy. It was the second occasion in the tournament when Dhoni was outfoxed by the KKR spinner. Dhoni was clean bowled for 1 by the fast-rising spinner – who also got his maiden India call-up for T20I series against Australia later this year.
Talking about Dhoni’s lean patch with the bat former Sri Lanka batting legend Kumar Sangakkara said this isn’t the CSK captain’s year and his performance is a reflection on his team’s fortunes in the tournament as well.
Sangakkara said on Star Sports ahead of CSK’s clash against KKR, “You will always have a season or series where you’re off the boil, and this is MS’s. It has reflected on the team’s fortunes as well. And it’s something you get to expect. You can over analyse it, you analyse it any which way, it just happens. And it’s happened at the back end of MSD’s career.”
“But that doesn’t make him a lesser player or less important for CSK at all. It’s just one of those phases that he has got to deal with and he’s got to come out of it.
“I am sure he is hungry to keep playing, hungry to perform. Knowing MSD, he would much rather take a team win than a half-century for himself. That’s the way he has been built, that’s the way he has always thought. If he can contribute to it in any way, even by scoring 10 runs he’d be happy,” he added.
The former Sri Lanka captain said Dhoni will be disappointed with his personal form but he can come back strong next year. The legendary wicketkeeper-batsman also suggested that the CSK skipper to not stay away from competitive cricket for too long as it will make things difficult for him once again.
“He will, of course, be disappointed with his personal form but with only 2 games to go, I don’t think there is any point in trying to salvage that. It’s about winning games. He can address it after he goes and comes back next year,” said Sangakkara.
“But what he has to do is to play some more super-competitive cricket in between. You can’t have long gaps between your IPL seasons, not playing international cricket or not playing regional or first-class cricket. He has got to be super competitive and play competitive cricket to be in form,” he added.
Dhoni hasn’t yet shown his card about his IPL 2021 plans but CSK CEO Kashi Vishwanathan had recently said they are confident that he will lead CSK next year as well. (mykhel)