As we inch closer to the IPL 2020, all eyes will be on Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni, who will return to playing cricket for the first time since India\u2019s World Cup exit last year. While Dhoni\u2019s return is a sign that he may still have some cricket left in him, CEO of the franchise Kasi Viswanathan has hinted at the former India captain continuing till 2022 besides providing surety for at least the coming couple of seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t worry about him at all. Yes, we can expect MS Dhoni to be part of both (IPL 2020 and 2021) and probably for even the next year, 2022,\u201d Viswanathan told India Today. \u201cI am getting updates through the media only, saying he has been training in Jharkhand in indoor nets. But we don\u2019t have to worry about the skipper, boss. We don\u2019t worry about him at all. He knows his responsibilities and he will take care of himself and the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Days after Suresh Raina said \u2018Thala\u2019 Dhoni\u2019s \u2018helicopters\u2019 are expected to be out soon, it seems as if his former CSK and India captain has taken Raina\u2019s words seriously. On Friday, reports emerged that Dhoni hit the ground running in a bid to prepare for the IPL, hitting the JSCA indoor facility ahead of the team\u2019s departure. Due to lockdown and social distancing, there aren\u2019t too many bowlers available in Ranchi at the moment, so Dhoni has taken to facing bowling machines for the time being.<\/p>\n
Vishwanathan is not the first to put to bed the rumours surrounding Dhoni\u2019s IPL future. Owing to a lack of a central contract from the BCCI, there were strong rumours that India\u2019s greatest captain\u2019s career could be about to end through retirement. In January this year however, N Srinivasan confirmed that MS Dhoni would be leading the franchise in 2021 as well. He went on to add that Dhoni would go into the auction in 2021 but he was confident that they would go out there and ensure Chennai\u2019s Thala was retained.<\/p>\n
Vishwanathan further elaborated upon CSK\u2019s preparation and training plans with the IPL being shifted overseas to the UAE. The CEO confirmed that the franchise team will be reaching Chennai on the 16th of August, and five days later will be departing for the UAE on the 21st of August. This could prove to be a fantastic opportunity for CSK to add impetus to their legendary status in an IPL season dubbed as having the potential of being the biggest ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team will start practicing at Chepauk mostly by August 16. Dhoni and Raina, along with other team members, would arrive by August 14-15, and we would leave for UAE around August 21,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will be a skill-based plus training camp. It can\u2019t immediately start off with skills because they are coming back after a long off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MS Dhoni has taken a hiatus ever since the semi final loss in the 2019 world cup against New Zealand. The IPL 2020 will be the first time MS Dhoni takes to the field since then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":24289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket","tag-ms-dhoni"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}