MS Dhoni has been at every CSK training session this IPL 2026 season. He has not been at a single match. Now, for the first time, CSK\u2019s batting coach Michael Hussey has explained exactly why \u2014 and it was Dhoni\u2019s own call.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s such a team-orientated guy,\u201d Hussey said on Friday ahead of CSK\u2019s clash against Mumbai Indians. \u201cHe always wants what\u2019s best for the team and he was worried that if he came there\u2019d be a bit too much of a distraction. Obviously the cameras would be on him a lot. The crowd would be cheering for him and things like that. And he really wanted the team to just be able to go about their job, do our thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hussey was clear that the decision was not made by the management. It was Dhoni himself who chose to stay away on match days \u2014 watching from home while attending pre-match net sessions every day. \u201cThat\u2019s the thinking behind Dhoni not wanting to come to the matches,\u201d Hussey added. \u201cWhether that\u2019s right or wrong, that\u2019s not my decision to sort of make.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a remarkably selfless call from a man who could walk into any IPL ground in any city and guarantee a standing ovation. Instead, Dhoni decided that his presence at matches \u2014 even as a non-playing squad member recovering from injury \u2014 would generate enough camera time and crowd energy to shift the team\u2019s focus away from the game itself. So he stayed home.<\/p>\n
Hussey made clear he personally wishes Dhoni were there. \u201cI personally love having him around the dressing room. He offers so much wisdom. He offers so much confidence to the rest of the guys. So he\u2019s obviously at training all the time and always a bubbly personality around training and offers a lot of his experience to the players there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The return timeline<\/strong><\/p>\n The bigger question \u2014 and the one every cricket fan in India wants answered \u2014 is when Dhoni will actually play. Hussey suggested the wait may be almost over.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s tomorrow or maybe the next match after that but he\u2019s progressing really well,\u201d he said. \u201cI know he\u2019s been upping his running speeds and that was probably the sticking point. I think we\u2019re very confident from a skill perspective with his batting and his wicketkeeping. But it was just making sure that he could maintain good running power particularly towards the back end of an innings where he\u2019s going to have to scamper those ones and twos.\u201d<\/p>\n The calf injury that has kept Dhoni out is essentially a fitness threshold issue rather than a skills question \u2014 Hussey confirmed CSK are satisfied with his batting and keeping. It is purely the running between the wickets and the explosive sprinting required at the death that needed to reach a specific threshold before clearance. \u201cAs soon as he\u2019s got the confidence in his calf then I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll give it the tick to be ready to go. And so we\u2019re kind of guided by him at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Hussey ended with a line that captured the national mood precisely: \u201cI think all of Chennai\u2019s waiting. All the fans are waiting and hoping.\u201d<\/p>\n The impact player puzzle<\/strong><\/p>\n Hussey also acknowledged CSK have been getting the impact player substitution wrong in some matches this season, with early-innings deployments backfiring and potentially unsettling the batting order. He hinted the team is moving toward a simpler approach \u2014 keeping the XI stable and using the impact player toward the back end of the innings rather than as a tactical mid-innings disruption \u2014 a shift that would bring more stability to players like Brevis and Dube who have been affected by the uncertainty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MS Dhoni has been at every CSK training session this IPL 2026 season. He has not been at a single\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":51131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ipl"],"reading_time":"4 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51130","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\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51132,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51130\/revisions\/51132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}