Suresh Raina, who played for CSK for the major part of his IPL career and won four titles with them, named his IPL 2023 XI but didn’t name MS Dhoni as the captain. Raina revealed his pick on JioCinema during an interaction with host Aakash Chopra and experts Parthiv Patel and Zaheer Khan.

Suresh Raina instead went for Gujarat Titans' skipper Hardik Pandya as the captain of his team instead of Dhoni. Raina also went for Nicholas Pooran as the keeper-batter in his XI thanks to his exploits for the Lucknow Super Giants.

He picked Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill as the openers for the team, while Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav and Rinku Singh followed. Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj and Yuzvendra Chahal completed the XI.

IPL 2023: WATCH - “I have 8-9 months to decide,” MS Dhoni not in a hurry to take call on retirement

The substitute players that Raina picked for his team were Cameron Green, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Jitesh Sharma, Matheesha Pathirana and Yash Thakur.

Parthiv too left Dhoni as he picked his team while Zaheer included the CSK veteran as captain in his best XI of IPL 2023.

Talking about the ongoing IPL season, Dhoni-led CSK entered the final with a 15-run over Hardik-led GT in the Qualifier 1. GT had finished at the top spot in table with 20 points from 14 games, while CSK came second with 17 points from 14 games.  

On the other hand, Mumbai Indians defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 81 runs in Eliminator to set up a Qualifier 2 clash with GT. The winner of the game will take on CSK in the final of the tournament.

(NDTV inputs)