On February 20, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) celebrated 16 years of having the legendary Indian captain and wicketkeeper MS Dhoni in the franchise , Tuesday. Dhoni has played in all seasons for CSK except the 2016 and 2017 seasons when the franchise was suspended.
Under Dhoni's captaincy, CSK has won five Indian Premier League (IPL) titles in 2010, 2011, 2018, 2021, and 2023 and made finals in 2008, 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2019. Dhoni has also had a great bond with the Chennai crowd over the years and is hands down one of the most popular cricketers in the southern city.
How Dhoni grabbed CSK deal?
In a recent interview on Star Sports, the 42-year-old spoke about how he grabbed the CSK deal. The legendary wicketkeeper-batter disclosed that a franchise had offered him $1 million to sign on as a marquee player. Nonetheless, he chose to enter the auction with a base price of $400,000 instead. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) aggressively bid for him during the auction, ultimately securing him for $1.5 million.
“Initially when five marquee players were announced, I was also approached to become a marquee player of a certain franchise. I had to make a quick decision. I thought that I was the captain of the 2007 T20 World Cup-winning team, I would easily go for 1 million dollars. So let’s take a risk. Let’s enter the auction. If two out of three teams that don’t have marquee players get interested in me, along with the other franchises, this will increase the chances of your price going up,” MS Dhoni told Star Sports.
“If you become a marquee player, the franchise owner thinks that if I am buying a player for a certain amount, then I will have to pay 10 or 15 percent more to the marquee player. So I thought that for me, at this point in time, it’s better to enter the auction – if any franchise without a marquee player buys me, then I have more chances of getting more money. And when the auction happened, when CSK bought me, I went for 1.5 million dollars (6 crore approx). So the thinking worked at that point of time,” Doni further added.
Dhoni would want to make history in this year's edition of the IPL by leading CSK to win the title for the record sixth time. With the squad the franchise has, CSK would enter the IPL 2024 as tournament's favorites.
CSK's squad after IPL 2024 auction
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, MS Dhoni (c), Devon Conway, Avanish Rao Aravelly, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, Nishant Sindhu, Ajay Mandal, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Sameer Rizvi, Deepak Chahar, Maheesh Theekshana, Mukesh Choudhary, Simarjeet Singh, Matheesha Pathirana, Tushar Deshpande, Prashant Solanki, Shardul Thakur, Mustafizur Rahman
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