MS Dhoni should play some more super-competitive cricket before IPL 2021: Kumar Sangakkara

The former Indian captain MS Dhoni is dealing with the poor form with the willow in the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020). The finisher played competitive cricket after more than a year, his last outing for India came against New Zealand in the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup. Thus, he is clearly not in the best possible form and is struggling to find the rhythm and take his team Chennai Super Kings (CSK) to glory.

On seeing Dhoni’s struggle with the bat, the former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has advice for the 39-year-old. Sangakkara believes that there’s nothing left for CSK in the IPL 2020 as they are already out of the race for the play-offs. Thus, Dhoni should focus more on how to bounce back stronger in the next edition of the T20 extravaganza. The former captain reckoned that MS should play more and more competitive cricket to regain his lost form as playing cricket only in IPL will not help him in any way.

“He will of course be disappointed with his personal form but with only one game 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,” Sangakkara said on Star Sports.

“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,” he added.

“I am sure MS Dhoni is hungry to keep playing,” says Kumar Sangakkara

Further in the interaction, Sangakkara stated that MS is still hungry to play good cricket and is a team player. Thus, his main motive will be to make his team win rather than improving his personal batting stats.

“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.”

The Sri Lankan veteran signed off saying that everyone has off days as a player but that doesn’t mean that they can’t play. Both Dhoni and CSK are dealing with bad form and Kumar has faith that they will deal with this maturely and will come back stronger.

“…. 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,” Sangakkara concluded.