During the toss for the match against Punjab Kings on Thursday, Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni gave supporters a significant hint about his future. However, he also perplexed the audience. While he stated that he will be wearing CSK’s famed yellow shirt, he refused to say whether or not he will be a player.
His role as a mentor for CSK in the IPL 2022 will be similar to his function as a mentor for Virat Kohli’s Team India for the T20 World Cup.
On Thursday, MS Dhoni told Danny Morrison at the toss: “You will see me in yellow but whether I will be playing for CSK, I don’t know. There are a lot of uncertainties around it for the simple reason that we have two new teams coming up. We don’t know the retention policy. We don’t know how many foreigners, Indian players we can retain, the money cap that every player will be cutting from the kitty. So there are a lot of uncertainties. Unless the rules are in place you can’t decide that. So we will wait for it to happen and hopefully, it will be good for everyone.”
He added during India Cements’ 75th-anniversary virtual event that fans would see him in a Chennai Super Kings jersey when the premier event returns to India in 2022 and that he hopes to ‘play his last match in Chepauk.’
Dhoni added: “There cannot be a better day than that (announcement of his retirement from international cricket on August 15). When it comes to farewell, you can always come and see me play for CSK and that can be my farewell game. You will still get an opportunity to bid me farewell so hopefully, you will come to Chennai, I will play my last game there and I can meet all the fans.”
MS Dhoni’s future appeared to be clarified when an India Cements executive stated that CSK will keep him and that he would not be auctioned off.
“Of course, we are going to retain him. He will be there next year and who knows a few more years too. Nothing has been decided and all he said was that fans can see his farewell match in Chennai. There is no way to conclude that it will be next year itself,” the India Cements official, who attended the virtual event, told Cricbuzz.
