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On March 26, Ravindra Jadeja made his captaincy debut in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 opener against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) marking the beginning of a new era for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). After CSK’s comprehensive loss, head coach Stephen Fleming revealed that MS Dhoni had talked about handing over the captaincy in the last season.
"We have talked about it. It is something MS talked about with me during last season. The timing was though his call," Fleming said at the virtual post-match press conference.
Fleming also revealed that the transition went nicely. The 40-year-old Dhoni handed over CSK captaincy just days before the defending champions’ clash against KKR.
"It has been documented widely to give Jadeja a clean slate going in the series (IPL). It was communicated to (Mr Srinivasan) through the team," the former Kiwi captain said.
"So, we have 100 per cent spoken about that. It has been a bit of transition here, it has been a little bit of change but went through nicely," he added.
Dhoni has captained CSK since the inaugural season. The wicketkeeper-batter has a win percentage of 61.55. The former Indian skipper led CSK to victory 130 times out of 213 appearances.
Jadeja’s captaincy debut did not get off to a good start despite MS Dhoni hitting an unbeaten 50. After top order failure, CSK could not recover and even a death overs surge could only get them to 131/5 which was easily chased down by Shreyas Iyer’s KKR with nine balls to spare.
Dhoni also ended the drought of half-centuries in IPL. After 28 innings, Dhoni hit a fifty in IPL. He also broke Rahul Dravid’s record of oldest Indian player to hit a fifty in IPL.
On the other hand, Jadeja did not have a good day with bat and ball. He failed to accelerate with the bat and scored just 26 runs off 28 deliveries. With the ball, he did not leak boundaries and conceded 25 runs from his quota of four overs but the left-arm spinner could not get a wicket.
