MS Dhoni may give CSK captaincy to Faf du Plessis: Sanjay Bangar

The former Indian all-rounder Sanjay Bangar believes that the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper MS Dhoni will not be donning the captaincy hat for the franchise in the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). It was earlier speculated that Dhoni will announce his retirement from IPL too after the 13th edition.

However, while interacting with the presenter in the last league match of CSK against Kings XI Punjab, MS had put to rest all the rumours by clarifying that he will be again seen in the Yellow Outfit the next year. CSK didn’t have a good outing in IPL 2020 as they failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in their 11-year history.

This has prompted Sanjay Bangar to come to the conclusion that Dhoni will resign as a captain and will hand over the reins to the former South African skipper Faf du Plessis. Bangar further added Du Plessis is the only option available for the Yellow Army as they won’t be able to add any player in the squad in the auctions who can successfully lead the team.

“So as far as I can understand, I feel that MS Dhoni may not be the captain next year and may play as a player and give the captaincy at this stage to Faf du Plessis for the transition to happen under Faf du Plessis,” Bangar said on Star Sports’ show Cricket Connected.

“Because as of now, they do not have any other option as a captain and if you talk outside the team, in the auction or in the trading, none of the teams would be releasing a player who has the capability of becoming the captain of CSK,” he added.

MS Dhoni had thought of quitting Indian captaincy after 2011 World Cup

Bangar further revealed that MSD had thought about leaving the captaincy of the Indian team after winning the 2011 World Cup, however, there was no suitable candidate. Thus, MS decided to continue his stint as Indian skipper and started grooming Virat Kohli for the role. Notably, Dhoni had handed Test captaincy to Virat in December 2014 while he had quit as a limited-overs captain in January 2017.

“As far as I know, MS Dhoni might have thought after 2011 if he should be continuing to captain the Indian team but he knew that India had quite a few tough encounters after that, we had to go and play in England and Australia and at that time there was no captaincy candidate ready, so he only handled that burden and at the right time he handed over the captaincy to Virat Kohli and he also played after that,” Bangar said.