IPL 2021: "I don’t think it is going to be his final year" - CSK CEO on MS Dhoni
Amidst viral rumors that IPL 2021 will be MS Dhoni's last year playing the tournament, CSK CEO Kasi Vishwanathan addressed the cricketer's future with the franchise. Kasi was hopeful that the wicket-keeper batsman would continue to feature in the action-packed league.
MS Dhoni endured his worst IPL season ever last year, scoring only 200 runs in 14 games - his lowest tally in a single edition of the tournament. Rumblings about his retirement from the league were the talk of the town at that point in time.
But the CSK skipper quashed all those hearsays with his famous one-liner - 'definitely not' - before the team's last league game.
Kasi Vishwanathan maintained that it is his personal opinion that MS Dhoni will continue to play in the IPL. He further added that they aren't looking at any alternatives as of now.
"See, I don’t think it is going to be his final year. This is my personal view and I don’t think we are looking at anybody now," he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
"MS Dhoni is very clear, focus on getting the process right" - Kasi Vishwanathan
The Chennai Super Kings failed to make it to the playoffs for the first time in the tournament's history in IPL 2020. Addressing what went wrong last year, Kasi Vishwanathan said:
“Normally, what we do is, we have a process set before we start a tournament. So we did the process for last year’s tournament also. It so happened that we missed some of our best players, and a couple of them got infected by Covid. Those (the situation) were beyond our reach.”
When asked if MS Dhoni gave the team a pep talk ahead of this season, Kasi denied the same and mentioned that the team believes in their process and hopes that the results will come their way if they get the basics right.
“Now the team is in good shape. The process has been good. They have been having practice sessions for the last 15-20 days. And we believe in our process. The captain (MS Dhoni) is very clear – you should do the process properly, and if the process is fine, the results will come,” he added.
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The Super Kings will play their first IPL 2021 match on April 10 against the Delhi Capitals (DC).