MS Dhoni has been backed to lead Chennai Super Kings next year.
CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan has said he’s confident his captain will continue to guide Chennai in IPL 2021.
CSK have had a disappointing Indian Premier League 2020 campaign. They were the first team to be eliminated from the tournament as they failed to make the IPL playoffs for the first time.
However, Viswanathan is in no rush to make sweeping changes.
“I am very confident that Dhoni will lead CSK in 2021. He has won three titles for us in the IPL,” he told the Times of India.
“This is the first year we have not qualified for the playoffs. No other team has done that. One bad year does not mean we will have to change everything.
“We didn’t play to our potential this season. We lost games that we should have won. That pushed us back.
“The withdrawals of Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh coupled with Covid cases in the camp meant that the balance of the side was upset.”
Concerns from Fleming
Despite the franchise’s chief backing Dhoni, head coach Stephen Fleming has raised concerns about the aging CSK outfit.
“It’s fair to say looking at the IPL table now that this team may have run out of juice,” Fleming said during a post-match presentation this year.
“If you’re looking at the three-year cycle – we won the first year; lost off the last ball last year, and we always thought that the third year with an aging squad would be difficult. And Dubai [UAE] has challenged us with a whole new set of requirements.”
The difficult season and comments by Fleming have led CSK fans to believe that changes might be on the way.
Even if Dhoni is backed to lead the team once again, fresh faces will still be required to turn things around.
CSK will be looking to end the season on a positive note when they face Kolkata Knight Riders for their penultimate clash in Dubai on Thursday.
Their final fixture of IPL 2020 sees them take on KXIP on Sunday.