MS Dhoni and Ben Stokes will be reunited after the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) splashed out INR 16.25 crore for the England Test captain at the IPL 2023 auction. Stokes made his IPL debut in 2017 at Rising Pune Supergiant and played alongside Dhoni for a season before CSK returned and Stokes went to RR.
It was another big payday for Stokes, whose list of IPL contracts continues to wow. Wow is the all-rounder himself, so he’s earned every penny of it.
In 2017, RPSG bought Stokes for 14.5 crore; in 2018, RR bought him for 12.5 crore, now at the IPL 2023 auction, Stokes landed his biggest contract, and also has garnered legions of CSK fans.
Before Stokes, CSK had bid aggressively and until high bids of around 16 crore for Sam Curran too. But Punjab Kings bought Curran for a whopping 18.5.
Then, CSK, who had come into the IPL 2023 auction with a purse of INR 20.45 crore went all in for Ben Stokes and splurged 16.25 crore for the superstar England all-rounder.
Ben Stokes makes a statement on Twitter after CSK bought him
Minutes after CSK had bought Ben Stokes for a hefty amount of INR 16.25 crore at the IPL 2023 auction, the all-rounder took to Twitter to make a statement of his own: no words, but just a picuture, of color Yellow. Stokes is stoked to be bagged by CSK, to play for the 4-time champions, and to play alongside MS Dhoni in what is expected to be Dhoni’s last IPL season.
In less than 30 minutes, this post by Ben Stokes got over 50,000 likes on Twitter.
— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) December 23, 2022
With Stokes, not only CSK secured one of the best, most clutch and big-game players, they have also nailed down on their captain after MS Dhoni. Stokes had pulled out of the last IPL 2022 due to national commitments after becoming the new England Test captain. But now, after being bought for INR 16.25 crore at the IPL 2023 auction, Stokes is all set to light up the IPL 2023, which is likely to start on March 31.
He has plenty of IPL experience too: in 43 IPL matches, Stokes has hit two hundreds and averaged 25 at a strike rate of 134 in addition to taking 28 wickets too.
CSK squad: MS Dhoni (c), Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Mukesh Chowdhary, Devon Conway, Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Matheesha Pathirana, Dwaine Pretorius, Ambati Rayudu, Mitchell Santner, Subhranshu Senapati, Simarjeet Singh, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Ben Stokes, Ajinkya Rahane
