MS Dhoni, the cricketing phenomenon, has established a legacy that is hard to match by any cricketer in the future. Dhoni has surpassed various records to earn several accolades throughout his fabled career. He has led Chennai Super Kings to 4 titles in IPL history through his brilliant captaincy skills combined with lightning-fast wicketkeeping and calm and relaxed pressure soaking batting in the death overs.
Dhoni has played 223 IPL matches, in which he has collected 4,835 runs on a staggering average of 40.0 and a stellar strike rate of 135.6. He has also effected 60 dismissals through runouts and stumpings. Dhoni as a captain, has won countless matches for CSK over the years. However, Dhoni’s decision to relinquish the captaincy right before the tournament’s inauguration has created a lot of buzz. His hefty price tag of ₹12 Crores in this edition of IPL has sparked debate over, Whether Dhoni purely as a wicket-keeper batter is worth that much money? Let’s go through everything and evaluate how this question came into existence.
IPL 2022 Retention
Chennai Super Kings retained MS Dhoni before the IPL Mega Auction for a hefty sum of ₹12 Crores. Various reports and statements suggest that the CSK management wanted to offer ₹16 Crores and the tag of the first retention of the franchise in Tata IPL 2022 to MS Dhoni. But Dhoni himself told them to keep Ravindra Jadeja as the top retention for the 15th edition of the sports extravaganza and build the young-lefthander as the main centre of attention for the seasons to come.
The Decision to Quit Captaincy:
Dhoni decided to relinquish captaincy just a couple of days ago before the inaugurating match of Tata IPL 2022. The announcement caused an uproar, and people started gushing about whether Dhoni is worth playing only as a wicketkeeper-batsman in the playing XI. Many critics chided Dhoni’s late reveal by saying that he has robbed CSK of finding suitable prospects for the captaincy in Tata IPL 2022. However, it was later known that Dhoni had already made it clear to CSK management and Jadeja that he would not be captaining the side ven before the IPL Mega Auction. Dhoni had asked the team management to keep him as the 2nd retention for Tata IPL 2022.
Performance in IPL 2022:
CSK has played three matches in the tournament as of the writing of this article, in which MS Dhoni is the only Super Kings batter who has looked good in all three games. He scored a valiant unbeaten 50* against Kolkata Knight Riders and played a blazing knock of 16 off 6 against Lucknow Super Giants. Dhoni is batting in his vintage style and giving tough competition as the best wicket-keeper batter of the tournament to Ishan Kishan, Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant. His stats in IPL 2022 justify his price tag of massive ₹12 Crores, and his assistance to Ravindra Jadeja in handling captaincy is pure gold.
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