Despite his team's six-wicket victory over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Thursday (October 29), Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain, MS Dhoni, once again had the spotlight on him. Dhoni's insipid form with the bat continued as the 39-year-old got out for just 1 in an otherwise successful CSK run-chase.
The great wicketkeeper batsman only has 200 runs at an average of 25.00 with a strike-rate of 116.27 to show for his efforts this season, one of the key reason why CSK have suffered their first league-stage elimination.
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Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara believes the fact that Dhoni hadn't played any form of competitive cricket leading upto this IPL has reflected in his performances. And if he is to ensure that doesn't happen next season, there must not be a repeat of the same.
"You will always have a season or series where you're off the boil, and this is MS's. It has reflected on the team's fortunes as well. And it's something you get to expect. You can over analyse it, you analyse it any which way, it just happens. And it's happened at the back end of MSD's career," Sangakkara told Star Sports.
"But that doesn't make him a lesser player or less important for CSK at all. It's just one of those phases that he has got to deal with and he's got to come out of it."
Dhoni hasn't yet made his plans clear, but CSK ownership and management are expecting him to once again lead the side in IPL 2021, especially given it's only six months away.
"I am sure he is hungry to keep playing, hungry to perform. Knowing MSD, he would much rather take a team win than a half-century for himself. That's the way he has been built, that's the way he has always thought. If he can contribute to it in any way, even by scoring 10 runs he'd be happy."
"He will of course be disappointed with his personal form but with only 2 games to go, I don't think there is any point in trying to salvage that. It's about winning games. He can address it after he goes and comes back next year."
"But what he has to do is to play some more super-competitive cricket in between. You can't have long gaps between your IPL seasons, not playing international cricket or not playing regional or first-class cricket. He has got to be super competitive and play competitive cricket to be in form," Sangakkara added.
With that said, whether the now-retired former India skipper will get any cricket under his belt in the coming months, is far from certain. While dependent on Dhoni's willingness too, there is no first-class or List A cricket scheduled in the winter for Jharkhand at the moment that he could play. He can't be expected to play any overseas T20 league either as BCCI rules bar any Indian player, either active domestically, internationally or in the IPL, from doing so.
