AB de Villiers Says MS Dhoni Should be CSK Captain as Long as He is Playing IPL – News18

With speculations over Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s future at Chennai Super Kings, AB de Villiers feels that ‘Thala’ should captain CSK if at all he decides to play another Indian Premier League (IPL) season.

CSK have won five titles under Dhoni’s leadership.

Ahead of this season, Dhoni had handed over the captaincy to Ruturaj Gaikwad, who did not have a bad season as a captain and a batter but CSK could not make the IPL play-offs.

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Dhoni’s future in the IPL remains a subject of debate as he has left everyone guessing. He retired from international cricket in 2020.

With due respect to Gaikwad, de Villiers had called the captaincy change a mistake at the start of the season and on Wednesday he stood by his remarks.

“I will only give you an honest answer if you’re going to report it in the right way yes so I wouldn’t say I called it a mistake. What I meant by that was with MS Dhoni around, playing against MS for so many years, that is the most intimidating sight to have him as an opposing captain,” said de Villiers in a select media interaction arranged by Jio Cinema.

“They took away quite a bit of intimidation factor from CSK with not having him as captain. It’s got nothing to do with Gaikwad’s captaincy. I actually think he’s got a very bright future and he captained extremely well,” he added.

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“But just having MS around, I always felt like it’s going to be a waste not having him as captain. They tried it before. It didn’t work (when Jadeja was replaced mid season). And unfortunately this year, yes, you’ve got to look at the results,” ABD said.

“The majority of the games they played well, but at the end of the day they didn’t qualify for the knockouts. It’s definitely not because of Gaikwad’s captaincy. I do however ever feel that when MS is around he should be captain,” added the South African.

(With inputs from Agencies)

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