Badrinath has played for Chennai Super Kings under Dhoni's captaincy.
Former Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batsman S Badrinath feels now is the time for MS Dhoni to decide his future in international cricket. However, he added that it should be completely his call to take.
Badrinath said Dhoni needs to keep a check on his body as he played a lot of cricket without rest in the last 14-15 years. He added the 39-year-old skips first-class cricket to give his body some time off.
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"It’s important he chooses. His body is also something that has gone through quite a bit. There’s a reason why he doesn’t play First-Class cricket or Test cricket because his back has also troubled him. It happens with any keeper, once you’ve played so much cricket under so much stress," Badrinath told Hindustan Times.
"He’s probably taking stock of how much he’s left in him. A player of his caliber, nobody should decide whether he should play the T20 World Cup, he should play IPL. It’s up to MS to decide what he wants to decide. Right now, there is too much speculation going around as well, most of it is not true."
Badrinath has played 6 IPL seasons with CSK and he knows how the management works there.
"Irrespective of how we’d performed, the owners treated us the same. Plus, we always had an amazing camaraderie and team environment… our get-togethers, the bosses would always be like ‘we know you’re a champion side’. We had MS Dhoni as our captain so it flowed from the top to Dhoni and to the team.
"One thing that I learned from Dhoni was that if something is going well, it’s important not to tamper with it. Even we don’t know, but something is working. And it’s better to not touch it. CSK is one of the most grounded franchises because we always went there and did our jobs."
(WITH HINDUSTAN TIMES INPUTS)