MS Dhoni is regarded as one of the most brilliants minds to have ever played the game of cricket. He has taken many decisions as a captain which has taken team India and Chennai Super Kings to new heights. However, the latest decision that he took ahead of IPL 2020, will go down as one of the bravest decisions by any captains in the IPL history.
Well, as per the reports, MS Dhoni, who is the skipper of one of the most successful teams of IPL — Chennai Super Kings, was given a choice to start their campaign in IPL 2020 from 23rd September onwards instead of playing the opening game on 19th September, owning to the fact that CSK were the last team to have started training for the upcoming league.
Well, for the unversed, at the end of August, 13 members of CSK staff, including two cricketers — Deepak Chahar and Rituraj Gaikwad, were found positive for the coronavirus. Thus extending the quarantine period of the franchise. To make things worst, two of the most experienced players of the team Harbhajan Singh and Suresh Raina pulled out of the tournament. It was from Friday evening, MS Dhoni’s CSK came out to practice.
IPL Governing Council Chairman Brijesh Patel gave CSK an option to play the 5th match of IPL 2020 instead of the opening match, which would have given CSK more time to prepare themselves. However, MS Dhoni decided to go with the initial schedule.
In an exclusive interview for InsideSport, one of the IPL GC member revealed:
“Releasing IPL schedule is the prerogative of IPL Governing Council. We don’t check with IPL franchises on their preferences in regard to scheduling of the games. But these are very exceptional circumstances, especially with the Covid-19 cases in the CSK team. That is the reason, before releasing the schedule we discussed with them. We could have scheduled CSK’s first game at a later stage. But they wanted to play the opening game”,
Well, not just this, MS Dhoni led CSK also opted for the schedule, where they will be the only team to play 3 games within the first 6 days of IPL 2020.
Furthermore, there are reports that suggests Suresh Raina is looking forward to returning back to IPL 2020. If that happens, MS Dhoni will be taking another big decision to whether allow Raina to re-enter IPL 2020 or go for a replacement.