MS DHONI

Finally, the biggest disappointment for CSK fans was their captain, MS Dhoni. Dhoni had shown that he was ready to go during a pre-IPL camp in March in Chennai, but then the Coronavirus pandemic struck, and in August, Dhoni announced his retirement from international cricket as well.

CSK hyped Dhoni’s return to the cricket field in another camp in Chennai before the players flew to UAE for IPL 2020 in August, as the wicketkeeper-batsman was seen hitting some big shots with ease, and hopes started to build for a Dhoni special IPL.

It was also expected that in the absence of Suresh Raina, Dhoni will promote himself up the order to become the player around whom the CSK batting will revolve.

IPL 2020: Sunil Gavaskar advices MS Dhoni to play domestic cricket ahead of the next IPL season

However, it didn’t happen, even as CSK kept losing match after match, but Dhoni kept pushing himself down the order, even sending the likes of Jadhav and Curran ahead of him at one point.  

As a captain as well, Dhoni missed a few tricks and was criticized for not backing young talent like Ruturaj Gaikwad and N Jagadeesan, discarding them after giving them a couple of matches in the middle of the tournament, when CSK was looking to stay afloat. His comment that the youngsters didn’t show ‘the spark’ that the team management expected, came in for a lot of criticism also.

Dhoni made 200 runs in 14 matches with a best of 47* at a strike-rate of 116.27, while hitting 7 sixes and 16 fours in total. It was a far cry from what the fans were used to seeing, especially after his exploits in IPL 2018 and 2019.

Though he has confirmed that he will play in the IPL 2021, it remains to be seen what changes Dhoni and the team management will bring to the squad and planning, aiming to dust this poor performance off and rebuild from here.