In a sensational development that will be music to the ears of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) management, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is likely to be placed in the uncapped category by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) when they announce player regulations for IPL 2025, TOI has learnt.
According to the BCCI, this means that they are returning to their old rule which has been in place since the 1st IPL and saw players who had retired from international cricket for at least five years classified as uncapped.
This implies that keeping Dhoni – a great former Indian and CSK captain – shouldn’t come at too high a price for CSK (in accordance with previous retention guidelines an uncapped player could be held back for Rs.4 crores). In 2022 CSK retained Dhoni by paying him INR 12 crores.
When asked if Dhoni would qualify as an uncapped player in IPL auction 2025, CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan told TOI: “I have no idea about it. We have not asked for this. The BCCI themselves have told us certain things like ‘uncapped player rule’ may remain. They haven’t said anything yet. Rules and regulations will be declared by BCCI.”
It appears that during last month’s meeting between owners of IPL franchises and BCCI on July 31 in Mumbai, CSK management lobbied for it. His final game was against New Zealand at Old Trafford during World Cup semi-finals where he scored 50 runs before his team got knocked out of the tournament. He also made himself unavailable from national duty on august 15th ,2020
Dhoni had stepped down as captain of CSK prior to IPL-2024 handing over to Ruturaj Gaikwad his opening partner in team India. Coming into bat only in the last overs, the 43-year-old scored 161 runs out of only 73 balls faced with a strike rate of 220.54, and an average batting score of 53.66.
This month at an event in Hyderabad, Dhoni said he will wait for IPL player regulations before deciding whether to play next season or not. “It’s too early to think about that right now. We need to see what they decide on issues such as player retention, and so on. It’s no longer in our hands at the moment because we still have to finalize certain rules and regulations” said Dhoni during a promotional event held at Hyderabad this month.
