India cricket great Sunil Gavaskar believes MS Dhoni's fan following has crossed the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. The first match of IPL 2020 took place behind the closed doors, or else it would have seen a huge attendance on the return of Dhoni.

Dhoni stepped onto a cricket field after a gap of 437 days, since his last match in World Cup 2019 for India. Gavaskar feels Dhoni has good support all over India, while Sachin and Kohli's fandom is limited to few cities. 

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Speaking about the Chennai Super Kings captain before the IPL opener, Gavaskar said, "Since MSD comes from Ranchi, which doesn't have a cricket culture as such, the whole India loves him. Tendulkar has Mumbai and Kolkata, Kohli has Delhi and Bengaluru but when you talk of Dhoni it's the whole India."

Dhoni and co. won the first match of the IPL 2020 against Mumbai Indians by 5 wickets in Abu Dhabi. Mumbai posted 162/9 in 20 overs with Saurabh Tiwary being the top scorer with 42 runs. Lungi Ngidi was the most successful CSK bowler with figures of 3/38.

In reply, CSK chased down the target with four balls left. Ambati Rayudu (71) and Faf du Plessis (58*) scored a half-century each to make the task easy for them.