Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, March 16: Suresh Raina, a former Indian batsman, said that he wouldn’t be shocked if MS Dhoni showed up to play in the Indian Premier League in 2024, noting that the captain of the Chennai Super Kings has been seeming healthy and hitting well in the run-up to the IPL 2023 season.
After travelling to Chennai well in advance to practise with the rest of his CSK colleagues, Dhoni has been preparing for what will likely be his final IPL game.
When the World Cup-winning skipper entered the training camp earlier in March, videos of MS Dhoni scoring massive sixes and having a good time at the CSK training camp have gone popular on social media. Suresh Raina, a former teammate of Dhoni, is rooting for the 41-year-old to do well with the bat and assist the four-time winners win another championship as CSK is poised to be led by Dhoni in the 16th IPL season.
It was announced last year that MS Dhoni will participate in the 2023 IPL. He added that it would only be right if he thanked the nation’s supporters when he travelled with CSK in the next season, which would include a home-and-away format for the first time since 2019.
“He can play the IPL next year as well, you never know,” Raina said.
“He (Dhoni) has been batting well and looking fit, it depends on how the performance is this year. It may be a little challenging since him and (Ambati) Rayudu haven’t played the tournament since one year,” he added.
Notably, Dhoni relinquished his position as CSK captain at the commencement of IPL 2022 and gave Ravindra Jadeja the helm. The CSK succession plan failed last season, so the India all-rounder stood down in the middle of the season, and Dhoni took over as captain.
Suresh Raina suggested that Dhoni might surprise everyone by extending his IPL career while pointing out that it might be difficult for players like him and Ambati Rayudu to immediately get into the swing of things without having played competitive cricket in the months leading up to the IPL 2023 season.
