The veteran MS Dhoni will be available for the Chennai Super Kings franchise for IPL 2023, and India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja is also expected to be a part of the plans for the team in yellow. The four-time champions have not had the best season in IPL 2022 and won’t make the playoffs of the tournament, along with five-time winners Mumbai Indians.
Dhoni is also expected to continue as captain of the CSK side next year, according to Cricinfo. At 41, Dhoni had handed over captaincy to Jadeja at the start of the season but had been reinstated after the all-rounder resigned. Jadeja has also left the team camp this season due to injury, and there was talk about cracks in the team.
The CSK side will play their final league game of IPL 2022 on 20 May against Rajasthan Royals, and will be eyeing a fifth win in the 14th game of the tournament for them.
“Definitely, because it will be unfair to not to say thank you to Chennai. Won't be nice to do that to CSK fans,” Dhoni said at the toss against RR when asked if he’d play for CSK next year.
Dhoni was handed back captaincy on the eve of the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad on the 1 May and at the toss he said, "You'll definitely see me in the yellow jersey - whether it's this yellow jersey or some other yellow jersey you will have to wait and watch."
After registering his first win in his second stint as captain of CSK, Dhoni had touched upon how leadership was affecting Jadeja.
"What is important is once you become the captain, you have to take care of many things," Dhoni had told Star Sports after the SRH match. "And that also includes taking care of your own game. And with him, his mind was working a lot.
"It's not easy to control your mind, it's the strongest feature… body, physiques, all of those things are fine, but once your mind starts working and it wants to contribute more: okay, what's the combination I can play with; okay, who can bowl at what point of time. It doesn't really stop. So, what really happens is the individual is not able to relax - even when he closes his eyes and wants to sleep, the mind is still working.
"So what I felt was, it was having an effect on his game also. When he was going in to bat, or when it comes to his preparation, is putting this [extra] burden affecting his game? Because I would love to have Jadeja as a bowler and batter and fielder. Captaincy, fair enough. Even if you relieve [him of] captaincy, and if he is at his best [as a player], that's what we really want because we were also losing a great fielder. We were struggling [to find] a deep-midwicket fielder."
Before the IPL mega auction in February, CSK had retained Jadeja for INR 16 Cr and MS Dhoni as the second player for INR 14 Cr.
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