Chennai Super Kings (CSK) CEO Kasi Viswanathan talked about MS Dhoni’s fitness and possibility of playing in the IPL 2024 season. He said that MS Dhoni is a man of his word and will keep his promise to play in the IPL next year.
Notably, MS Dhoni underwent knee surgery right after he won the IPL 2023 for the CSK franchise. Since then, he has been rehabbing and working out on his fitness. MS Dhoni was retained as the captain of the Super Kings for IPL 2024. CSK released as many as 8 players but they retained the core of the team, including MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, and Ruturaj Gaikwad.
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"If our leader has given a word, he has never gone back. He already told me what he was planning to do in that interview. I am sure that knowing MS, he will always do what he has committed to do. He is quite fit. Thalaivan is thalaivan (our leader is our leader)," Kasi Viswanathan said in a video shared by CSK.
Kasi Viswanathan also said Chennai Super Kings were thinking of retaining Ben Stokes before the England all-rounder made himself unavailable for the next season. He also confirmed that Kyle Jamieson was also let go due to fitness issues, while Dwaine Pretorius was released as CSK couldn’t properly use his services.
Here is the video:
One of the 8 released players was Ambati Rayudu. Rayudu announced his retirement from IPL after CSK won their fifth title in IPL 2023. Viswanathan confirmed that CSK was actively looking for replacements for Rayudu. The IPL 2024 trading window remains open till December 12, a week prior to the mini-auction.
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“We have done only one trade in the last 15 years. That is for Robin Uthappa. We did look out for some players as replacement for Ambati Rayudu, but we could not get it. A slot has to be filled. We will look to fill up that slot with some youngster if we are not able to get an experienced player,” said Viswanathan.
He went on to say that there have been some interesting players released ahead of the mini-auction, insisting that the addition of Australian players would make it an interesting auction. The IPL 2024 auction is to be held in Dubai on December 19.
“With regards to Hardik, we finally found out that he returned to Mumbai Indians. There have been some interesting players released. This will be a good auction because I heard that some of the Australian players like Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Travis Head are all coming back to the IPL. So it will be an interesting auction,” Viswanathan added.
Players retained by CSK:
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Devon Conway, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni (C & WK), Ajinkya Rahane, Deepak Chahar, Maheesh Theekshana, Mukesh Choudhary, Mitchell Santner, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Simarjeet Singh, Matheesha Pathirana, Tushar Deshpande, Prashant Solanki, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Ajay Mandal.
(India Today inputs)
