Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra said that the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) will be under pressure in choosing between Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ravindra Jadeja as their first capped player retention before the IPL 2025 auction. He also opined that MS Dhoni will be the franchise’s first retention as an uncapped player. With 583 runs at an average of 53.00 in 14 innings, Gaikwad was the
second-highest run-getter in IPL 2024 as well behind only Virat Kohli (741). Jadeja, on the other hand, amassed 267 runs at an average of 44.50 and picked up eight wickets at an economy rate of 7.85 in 14 innings as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra said, “You are going to retain Dhoni as an uncapped Indian for four crores. So that’s your first retention. In my opinion, this team has just two players who you would want to give 18 crores – one is the captain and the other is an ex-captain and a very important player of this team – Ruturaj Gaikwad and Ravindra Jadeja.”
“You want to give 18 crores each to both of them but who will be the second retention, Rutu or Jaddu – that’s a big question. Assuming you told Rutu that you would retain him for 18 crores, and convinced Jaddu to be retained for 14 crores, the third retention from the capped category has to be Shivam Dube,” he further added.
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However, he also added that Shivam Dube might be CSK’s third capped player to be retained if Gaikwad and Jadeja are their first two retentions in that category as well. He smashed 396 runs at a strike rate of 162.29 in 14 innings in IPL 2024 as well.
“I am looking towards Indian players who have game-changing abilities and Shivam Dube’s performance for this franchise has been incredible. The third very big metric is that if I let this player go, for how much will he be sold at the auction? You have the Right To Match card, so it’s not that you can’t build the core. Suppose you retain only two, you will get four RTMs,” he reasoned.
“I see only these four players – Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, and MS Dhoni as an uncapped Indian. Which other player could have come in this category – Matheesha Pathirana. I want to retain Matheesha Pathirana somehow. It’s possible that this team thinks of retaining Rutu for 18 crores, then Matheesha Pathirana for 14 crores and Shivam Dube for 11 crores or the other way around, and then keep Jaddu as the fourth retention. Then you give 18 crores each to two people. So you retain four plus MS Dhoni,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
