In the latest big news surrounding the defending champions Chennai Super Kings, MS Dhoni has taken the captaincy back from Ravindra Jadeja to allow the all-rounder to “focus on his game,” announced the franchise on Saturday evening in an official statement.
This move, of Dhoni taking back the captaincy isn’t totally shocking though as both CSK and Jadeja’s performances have been below-par so far.
Jadeja to handover CSK captaincy back to MS Dhoni:Ravindra Jadeja has decided to relinquish captaincy to focus and concentrate more on his game & has requested MS Dhoni to lead CSK. MS Dhoni has accepted to lead CSK in the larger interest & to allow Jadeja to focus on his game.
— Chennai Super Kings (@ChennaiIPL) April 30, 2022
Dhoni, who had led CSK since 2008, had given Jadeja the captaincy duties couple of days before the start of IPL 2022. CSK’s season hasn’t gone as expected as the four-time titleholders have won only 2 out of their 8 games so far and are close to being eliminated from the playoff race.
They lost their first four matches under Jadeja before pulling back one victory against RCB, before managing just one more victory in the next three games, with Dhoni winning them a last-ball thriller against Mumbai Indians.
In 8 matches, despite taking a promotion in the batting order, Jadeja has scored only 112 runs at a strike rate of 121, much lower than what had been in the past couple of seasons; his best score has been 26*. With the ball, the southpaw hasn’t been as potent as he’d been in the previous seasons, managing just 5 wickets in 8 matches while conceding runs at an economy of 8.19 runs per over.
Clearly, Jadeja’s personal game has been affected by taking over the captaincy role, and has also looked bogged down by it; he even has dropped a couple of catches.
Adding more power to his play!#WhistlePodu #Yellove
pic.twitter.com/NWjamMnH2D
— Chennai Super Kings (@ChennaiIPL) April 30, 2022
CSK’s official statement made it crystal clear that it is Ravindra Jadeja who has asked Dhoni to take back the captainship so that he could focus back more on his own game.
“Ravindra Jadeja has decided to relinquish captaincy to focus and concentrate more on his game and has requested MS Dhoni to lead CSK. MS Dhoni has accepted to lead CSK in the larger interest and to allow Jadeja to focus on his game,” the franchise said in their official statement.
