Chennai Super Kings’ poor performance in IPL 2020 has coincided with captain MS Dhoni’s poor form as well. Dhoni has in the past taken his team out of trouble with his batting but this season has been different.
The lack of match practice has clearly left its mark on Dhoni’s form, who has looked patchy throughout the season. With the next season of IPL expected to take place in around 6 months’ time, Dhoni needs to get back in form to change the fortunes of his team.
Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, who is commentating in the IPL feels this could just be one of those years for Dhoni when things didn’t go right.
“…. you will always have a season or series where you’re off the boil, and this is MS’. It has reflected on the team’s fortunes as well. And it’s something you get to expect. You can over analyse it, you analyse it any which way, it just happens. And it’s happened at the back end of MSD’s career.
“But that doesn’t make him a lesser player or less important for CSK at all. It’s just one of those phases that he has got to deal with and he’s got to come out of it,” Kumar Sangakkara told Star Sports.
“I am sure he is hungry to keep playing, hungry to perform. Knowing MSD, he would much rather take a team win than a half-century for himself. That’s the way he has been built, that’s the way he has always thought. If he can contribute to it in any way, even by scoring 10 runs he’d be happy.
“He will of course be disappointed with his personal form but with only 2 games to go, I don’t think there is any point in trying to salvage that. It’s about winning games. He can address it after he goes and comes back next year.
“But what he has to do is to play some more super-competitive cricket in between. You can’t have long gaps between your IPL seasons, not playing international cricket or not playing regional or first-class cricket. He has got to be super competitive and play competitive cricket to be in form.”
