Legendary India and Chennai Super Kings cricketer hinted that even though he may remain part of the setup with the franchise in some off-field capacity, it may not be in a player’s role if the retention rules aren’t too lenient on existing Indian Premier League franchises.
The league is set to expand to ten teams from next year onwards. There will be a mega auction held to decide the final squads. But it is not yet certain if the existing eight teams will get to retain their players and if so, how many in the Indian and overseas category.
Learn more 👉 ”You will get to bid me farewell in Chennai”: Dhoni hints playing IPL 2022
With that in mind, Dhoni refrained from making a clear statement when asked by toss presenter Danny Morrison at Thursday’s encounter against Punjab Kings if he’ll be seen in CSK’s shirt next year or not.
“You’ll see me in yellow next season but whether I’ll be playing for CSK there are a lot of uncertainties around it. For a 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.”
Dhoni responded to Morrison
While Dhoni has indirectly refused to make a definite statement on his Premier League future, the Super Kings are likely to retain their mighty successful captain for emotional reasons if they do get a chance to keep some of their players.
The 40-year-old has come to be a synonym with CSK and the passionate city of Chennai since the IPL’s inception back in 2008. In wake of that, the franchise would find it hard to let go of him, even though his returns with the bat have diminished quite drastically.
Dhoni made only 296 runs over 28 matches since the start of IPL 2020 in September last year. He is averaging only 19.73 and has a strike-rate of just 108.42 in this period.
