Will Dropping Ganguly And Dravid In 2008 For Fitness Come And Haunt Dhoni in 2025?

IPL 2025: Chennai Super Kings ‘ former skipper MS Dhoni has become the biggest talking point of the eighteenth edition of the Indian Premier League. MS Dhoni and CSK have always been synonymous with each other, and this time around, too, nothing seems to have changed. Dhoni certainly attracts loads of eyeballs, fills stadiums, and turns them into a ‘sea of yellow’, but eventually, who is paying the price for it in the ongoing Indian Premier League? It is Chennai Super Kings.

A batsman of MS Dhoni’s caliber coming down to bat at number nine against Royal Challengers Bengaluru is something that scared the daylights out of Chennai Super Kings and MSD fans. It was more than painful to watch MS Dhoni coming out to bat after Sam Curran and R. Ashwin. After all, it was MSD who made an entire generation believe that the game isn’t over till the time he is out there with the bat in his hands. But, more than his retirement, it is his integrity that is being questioned now.

Dhoni has been celebrated every day by a generation that grew up on his towering sixes and his heroics behind the stumps. His overly loved biopic ‘MS Dhoni: The Untold Story’, gave his fans an insight into how he thinks and what all went behind the scenes that made him the legendary captain that he is.

There is a particular scene in the film where Dhoni meets the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) selectors virtually to pick the team for the 2008 Commonwealth Bank series. The interesting part of the conversation is where Dhoni insists on dropping three senior players from the team on the basis of their fitness. Now, after Stephen Fleming’s recent comments on the situation of MS Dhoni’s knee, there is a question that needs to be asked. Would MS Dhoni’s younger self entertain his present version and pick him in CSK’s playing XI? The answer to this is no.

MS Dhoni has been lightning-quick behind the stumps, and there are no doubts about that. But one can’t just pick and choose his batting number on game day, depending on how his body is feeling. At this point in time, it has become very evident that MS Dhoni is not the same batter that he used to be in the previous few editions of the IPL. Will MS Dhoni continue to walk out for Chennai Super Kings when the game is almost done, or will he think beyond the brand value and the eyeballs that he brings in with himself in the IPL? This is something that the former CSK skipper needs to think about.