Former India cricketer and World Cup-winning captain, Kapil Dev, believes that MS Dhoni should compete in domestic cricket as it would be impossible for the latter to perform well if he sticks just to the Indian Premier League (IPL). Dhoni, who turned 39 this year, had not played any form of competitive cricket since India’s semi-final exit from the 2019 World Cup until the commencement of IPL 2020 in UAE.
The veteran skipper who led the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to three IPL wins (2010, 2011, and 2018) couldn’t steer his side to the playoffs this season.
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Though the Men in Yellow won their last three matches of the league stages and even put curtains on KXIP’s run to the playoffs, they were the first team to be left out from a spot in the knockouts.
Kapil, who led the Indian cricket team to their maiden World Cup title in 1983, feels that the Jharkhand-born cricketer should engage more in competitive cricket comprising List A and T20 to keep himself in form.
In IPL 2020, MS Dhoni could amass only 200 runs in 14 innings at an average and strike rate of 25.00 and 116.28 respectively.
“If Dhoni decides on playing only IPL every year, then it is impossible for him to perform. It is not a good thing to talk about age but at his age, the more he plays, the more his body will be tuned,” Kapil was quoted saying to ABP News.
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“If you don’t play any cricket for ten months and suddenly play IPL, you can see what happened. You can always have a season up or down if you have played so much cricket. It has happened to someone like Chris Gayle also,” said the former India all-rounder.
“He should go back to first-class cricket and play there. If someone has achieved so much, the dip in form does affect and it becomes a challenge. Let’s see how he comes out of it,” he added.
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During CSK’s last league match against KXIP on November 1, Dhoni confirmed that he won’t be retiring and that he’d return for IPL 2021.
Even former England skipper Michael Vaughan had expressed his view on MSD continuing playing in IPL and a grand farewell on his final game.
“If the IPL takes place in the UAE next year again, which there are whispers it will happen, MS Dhoni will have to play another year. He cannot finish his IPL career in front of no crowd.
He has to play at least one game the following year. He can’t go out in front of no crowds. If there is one player who deserves a big crowd to say goodbye to – if he probably cannot play, he would just disappear and say goodbye without us knowing about it – like he did in international cricket. But I want to see a grand crowd for his last game,” Vaughan said on Cricbuzz.
