Report by Ankita Banerjee.
IPL 2022 is about to witness a big leadership change in the Chennai Super king’s franchise. MS Dhoni, the former captain of the team is reported to handle the team captaincy over to Ravindra Jadeja’s hands.
Dhoni had been the captain of CSK since the very start of the league in 2008 . He has recently retired from international cricket, in August 2020.
Under his captaincy, the team of Chennai won the IPL trophy in 2010, 2011, 2018 and 2021 apart from winning two now-defunct Champions League T20 titles in 2010 and 2014.
In a formal statement released on Thursday afternoon, the franchise states that, ‘MS Dhoni has decided to hand over the leadership of Chennai Super Kings and picked Ravindra Jadeja to lead the team’.
‘Jadeja, who has been an integral part of Chennai Super Kings since 2012, will only be the third player to lead CSK. Dhoni will continue to represent Chennai Super Kings this season and beyond,’ it further adds.
After spreadingof the news, Former Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain Virat Kohli feels that fans will never forget MS Dhoni’s illustrious stint as the captain of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Sharing a picture on Twitter, Kohli wrote, ‘You have finished a successful stint as captain. Fans will never forget this chapter.’
As for Jadeja, he is totally inexperienced as a captain. Jadeja, 34, has never led a team at the senior level; he was the captain of an India Under-19 team in 2007.
But Jadeja is recognised now as one of the finest all-format allrounders. In terms of fielding, there are few better than him in international cricket, but it his desire to keep improving that has become his biggest strength. Recently, Jadeja climbed to the No. 1 spot for allrounders in the ICC Test rankings after his match-winning performance in the Mohali Test against Sri Lanka, where he scored 175 and then returned a nine-wicket match haul. Jadeja is also in the top ten among ODI allrounders, and is also a crucial member of the T20I side.
In the last two years at Super Kings, Jadeja has been the key finisher with the bat, a role that Dhoni had played for a long time. Between the 2020 and 2021 seasons, Jadeja scored 459 runs at an average of 57.37 and a robust strike rate of 157.73. That included two half-centuries, the only times Jadeja has reached the landmark in a career of more than 270 matches. During this period, he also bagged 19 wickets in 30 matches at an economy of 7.78.
While he might not have clocked enough captaincy hours, Jadeja has immense experience playing alongside Dhoni at Super Kings – 131 matches, since joining the team in 2012. And that, Viswanathan said that Dhoni felt, made Jadeja the best successor for him, considering he has the heft as a player, as a leader, as an allrounder, and as a matchwinner.
Super Kings CEO Kasi Viswanathan said that Dhoni wanted the leadership “transition to be smooth” and felt Jadeja was ready to take up the mantle for the team, which won its fourth IPL title last year.
CSK will open their IPL 2022 campaign against two-time IPL champions Kolkata Knight Riders in a re-match of the 2021 IPL final at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday.