2018 IPL: Suresh Raina to be CSK's vice-captain

Chennai Super Kings' Suresh Raina has confirmed that he will be MS Dhoni's deputy in the upcoming 2018 IPL. The left-hander was one of the three players retained by the Chennai-based franchise, who opted to hold on to MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja as well.

"MS Dhoni is going to be the captain, I'm going to be the vice-captain, Jadeja is also going to be there," the explosive middle-order batsman said.

While Dhoni, who is also the captain of the side, was retained as the first player and is set to receive INR 15 Crores, Raina will be on a payroll of INR 11 Crores and Jadeja INR 7 Crores. As a result of retaining three capped players, CSK will go into the auction with a purse of INR 47 Crores.

Raina opened up on the franchise's auction plans as well. He stated that the management and retained players will be meeting in the immediate future to plan for the upcoming auction which will be held on 27th and 28th January in Bangalore.

"Then there are certain players in the auction. We all will be having a meeting soon and then decide what planning we will be having for the auction," said the left-hander.

The 31-year-old further added that he feels CSK will have the best team in the competition. The argument Raina gave to support his opinion was that both him and Dhoni have seen a lot of players at the international as well as the domestic level and that will help them in identifying the kind of talent they need for a particular role.

"This year you will have the best team in CSK, I have a feeling. Because two years I have played for Gujarat, he (Dhoni) played in Pune and played a lot of matches for India also and then I've been playing a lot of domestic games...I've seen a lot of talent," Raina added.