In big news for all the Chennai Super Kings fans, IPL council recently cleared the return of MS Dhoni to the franchise for next year’s IPL.

Earlier, there were speculations that former Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals players will be put into the mega-auction scheduled to take place next week. But with both the suspended teams set to return to the IPL fold, the officials of Chennai Super Kings appealed to the IPL council to let them retain their star player in MS Dhoni.

Now with IPL council clearing player retention of 3 players and 2 players’ right to match cards, Chennai and Rajasthan teams are cleared to retain a maximum of 5 players from their original set up, if they are available.

Now the question in everyone’s mind is whether CSK brings him in as captain or just as a wicket-keeper batsman.

Rising Pune Supergiant had replaced him with Steve Smith after a dismal first season and Smith took RPS to the finals of the tournament. MS Dhoni looked a completely different player without the burden of captaincy. He was back to his free-flowing self and helped Smith from behind the stumps in setting fields.

MS Dhoni will be wearing the yellow jersey again, but CSK management will definitely have some thoughts before giving MS Dhoni the captaincy again. The CSK team management is looking to retain Suresh Raina and Faf du Plessis as well; which mean they might have a former CSK captain in their team in form of Raina and a brilliant international team captain Du Plessis in their ranks.

Both Du Plessis and Raina are capable captains in their own right and Raina has experience of leading CSK in previous seasons. Both are young and will be better options for CSK to lead them to glory in the coming years.

MS Dhoni can be more helpful to CSK team management as a mentor to the new captain and aid the captain from behind the stumps, rather than lead the team himself. All the new players that CSK buy in the auction, whether Indian or international, will look up to Dhoni for guidance.

Dhoni can do this without being captain. He has reached a stage in his career where being the captain is not necessary for him to guide CSK to more glory in the Indian Premier League.

If, CSK do decide to make MS Dhoni captain; it will an opportunity for MS Dhoni to groom a new captain for the future. At 36, he could talk about his future in the league with CSK team management and as a captain for the upcoming season; he could mentor and groom a new player for a leadership role in the team.

Anyways, if or not MS Dhoni becomes the captain of the Chennai Super Kings, for all his fans in Chennai, he is and will remain their ‘Thalaivaa’.