Former West Indian captain Brian Lara hopes that the three-time IPL winning franchise Chennai Super Kings (CSK) will retain their captain, MS Dhoni, for the next edition of the IPL in 2022. Dhoni has been associated with CSK since the inception of the league in 2008, leading the franchise to eight finals and three IPL titles as well.
Dhoni, the pillar of the CSK team, has scored 4728 runs which came at an impressive average of 39.4 runs in 218 IPL matches for CSK. Brian Lara, one of the legends of the game, named Dhoni the biggest brand in Indian cricket along with current Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain Virat Kohli.
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While speaking with Cricket.com, he said that despite underperforming with the bat this season, it is not the end of the CSK skipper. He said: “I mean it’s (IPL) not just franchise cricket in India. This is a brand. Dhoni, along with Virat Kohli, are the two biggest brands in India. Obviously you want to pick the best team and you want to make sure that everybody is fit and everybody is capable of performing at the highest level. Yes, Dhoni has underperformed this season but it’s not the end of the road for him.”
He continued: “Well you can see me in yellow, but whether I’ll be playing for CSK – there are a lot of uncertainties around it for a simple reason that we have two new teams coming up. We don’t know the retention policy. We don’t know how many foreigners, Indian players we can retain, the money cap that every player will be cutting from the kitty. So there are a lot of uncertainties.”
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However, Brian Lara has stated that the Chennai-based franchise will definitely retain their captain, MS Dhoni.
He concluded: “It’s very difficult to see Chennai Super Kings going into the 2022 IPL without Mahendra Singh Dhoni. So I believe in terms of the value of the brand and what he brings to the IPL and his franchise is of great value. I believe CSK will retain him if they need to retain any players.”
