Is Dhoni playing his last IPL: Will he continue playing despite leaving the captaincy; Said in 2023 – will play the last match in Chennai

MS Dhoni took retirement from international cricket in 2020.

This could be the last IPL of former Chennai Super Kings captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He surprised everyone and left the captaincy a day before the start of the tournament. Before the opening ceremony, Rituraj Gaikwad arrived in his place in the captain's photoshoot.

IPL management confirmed that Gaikwad will captain CSK this season in place of Dhoni. Despite leaving the captaincy, Dhoni will continue playing. However, now there is speculation that this could be 42 year old Dhoni's last IPL.

Ruturaj Gaikwad arrived as the captain of CSK in the Captain's Day photo shoot of IPL.

Mahi had said- will play the last match in Chepauk
Dhoni had said last season itself that he would play the last match of his career at Chepauk Stadium in Chennai. Last season, Chennai played its last match at Narendra Modi Stadium in Gujarat. Which was also the final of the tournament. CSK won it but since the match was not held in Chepauk, Dhoni decided to remain with the team for one more season.

Now CSK team will play the first match of the tournament in Chepauk. The match will be against RCB, which could also be the last IPL match of Dhoni's career. However, after the injury of Devon Conway, Dhoni can now announce retirement after playing a few more matches.

MS Dhoni (left) is continuously practicing batting for IPL. In such a situation, it is considered confirmed that he will play some matches.

Had Conway played, Dhoni would have definitely retired early.
New Zealand's Devon Conway has been opening for CSK for the last 2 seasons and he is a very successful opener. He got injured before the tournament started, now he will be able to make a comeback by the first week of May.

Conway also does wicketkeeping along with batting, which means if he had been fit, CSK would have managed even without Dhoni's wicketkeeping. But now Conway is out and apart from him, uncapped Avnish Rao Araveli is the only wicketkeeper in the team. Who has not made his IPL debut yet.

Araveli can definitely play some matches but it is difficult to get a chance in all the matches. In such a situation, even if Dhoni wants to take retirement after the first match, it will be a difficult decision considering the situation of the team.

Rituraj Gaikwad (right) took over the captaincy of CSK in place of MS Dhoni (left).

Retirement possible even with the last match of the league stage
Looking at the current conditions, there is a chance that Dhoni may say goodbye to cricket in the league stage with the last match to be played at Chepauk Stadium. However, if CSK reaches the playoffs or finals and these matches are held in Chennai, then Dhoni can definitely decide to play till the playoffs.

Dhoni is the only captain to win 100 IPL matches
MS Dhoni is the most successful captain in IPL history. He captained 226 IPL matches and led the team to victory in 133. Under his captaincy, CSK won 5 titles, in this case former MI captain Rohit Sharma is also the number-1 captain by winning 5 titles. However, Rohit also could not win more than 100 IPL matches under captaincy.

Dhoni has played 250 IPL matches as a player. In these he scored 5082 runs at a strike rate of 135.92. Dhoni hit 24 fifties and 84 runs was his best score, which was made against RCB only. The first match of the 17th season will be played against this team today.

Tickets for CSK's first 3 matches sold
IPL management released the schedule of only the initial 21 matches in the first phase due to the dates of Lok Sabha elections. In this phase, Chennai will play 4 matches, out of which the tickets for the first 3 matches have been completely sold out. The fourth match will be held on April 5 against Sunrisers in Hyderabad. The first 3 matches will be against RCB, GT and DC. The matches against Bengaluru and Gujarat will be played in Chennai.

CSK has changed captain in 2022 also
Captain Ruturaj is the fourth captain of CSK. Before him, Ravindra Jadeja captained in 8 matches and Suresh Raina captained in 5 matches. Raina took command in the matches when Dhoni could not captain due to injury or any other reason. While Jadeja was made the captain before the start of the 2022 season, he took command in 8 matches but the team could win only 2 matches.

Jadeja decided to step down from the captaincy mid-season and Dhoni again took the reins of CSK. Despite Dhoni's captaincy in the 2022 season, the team lost 4 out of the last 6 matches. The team stood at 9th position that season with 4 points with 10 losses out of 14. Now CSK once again handed over the responsibility of the team to the new captain in place of Dhoni before the start of the season. In such a situation, it will be important to see how the team performs.

Ravindra Jadeja captained CSK in 2022, but he could win only 2 out of 8 matches for the team.

Dhoni took international retirement in 2020
MS Dhoni took retirement from international cricket in 2020 itself. On August 15, 2020, at 7:29 pm, Mahi had announced his retirement through a social media post. He is the only captain to make India win the ICC Champions Trophy (2013), ODI World Cup (2011) and T-20 World Cup (2007) under his captaincy.