Former India player Aakash Chopra said that veteran MS Dhoni doesn’t need any Indian Premier League (IPL) to give validation for his return. He can certainly return to international cricket with or without playing the league this season. His comments come at that time when there is uncertainty over the IPL 2020 taking place due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus in the country. It was earlier scheduled to begin on March 29 but later it was suspended until April 15.

“For a player like Dhoni, IPL was never going to be a yardstick. If he had scored runs in the IPL, experts would have been like ‘select Dhoni’, ‘do this and do that’. MS Dhoni knows what he is doing, whether he wants to come back or not,” Aakash Chopra said in a YouTube video.

“IPL, I don’t think was a critical factor. If he wants to come back, he will make himself available, if the selectors decide to pick him, he will be picked automatically because you won’t get experience in supermarkets. Dhoni is a hugely experienced player. If India needs MS Dhoni, then with or without IPL, he will come back,” he shared.

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IPL 2020 was considered as a crucial tournament for MS Dhoni who has been out of the action since India’s 2019 World Cup exit. However, he had started practising in Chennai earlier this month. But management said MS Dhoni needs to prove his worth once again to return to the squad.

“He will be back in the reckoning only if he has a good IPL. And why only him? There are so many senior and young players who will play in the IPL. If they do well, they ought to be considered too. So, you could see some surprise inclusions,” a senior BCCI source had told the Press Trust of India after Sunil Joshi took over from MSK Prasad as the chairman of selectors.