The franchise has realized that MS Dhoni, an icon who retired recently, always makes the best choices.
This is due to assumptions made about his future. Dhoni’s position as a player for CSK has been widely speculated since it did not make it to the IPL 2024 playoffs.
CSK’s final league match was against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in which they lost by 27 runs and finished fifth on the points table.
The CEO says: “I don’t know. It’s only MS (Dhoni) who can answer that question. We have always respected MS’ decisions. We’ve left it to him and you all know he doesn’t take his own decision but announces it at the right time.”, Viswanathan said.
In a video posted by CSK franchise on YouTube, Viswanathan explained that, “We expect a decision when he decides so we wish that he decides soonest possible but we are very hopeful of having him with us next year as well. Fans also think so.”
Viswanathan also added: “This Indian coaching assignment made me receive calls from many Indian journalists asking if Stephen Fleming is interested in taking up such an appointment.”
“So I jokingly asked him are you applying for the Indian coaching assignment? And Stephen just laughed and said ‘Do you want me to?’ I know that’s not going to be his cup of tea because he doesn’t like being involved nine months or ten months in a year. That’s my feeling. Even now I haven’t discussed anything further,” he went on.
However days before commencement of IPL 2024 season, Dhoni handed over captaincy duties to opener Ruturaj Gaikwad surprising many pundits around cricket fraternity. The CSK management had talks with Gaikwad over how leadership could be transferred from Dhoni.
According to Viswanathan, “In discussions we had with the team management before a couple of years ago when Ruturaj came into the CSK and started performing well, we felt that he would be a good choice to captain the side. Both Flem (Fleming) and MS (Dhoni) had long discussions with him, they had plans to make him as a future captain.”
“His game approach impressed MS and Fleming during their talks with him.. We knew he’d make a very good captain at CSK. So far so good; he has captained comfortably.” The senior players also helped.” It did not impact his batting performance. He is still very consistent,” he observed.
Viswanathan added that Gaikwad was handling the pressure of leading CSK well on top of thanking supporters for adjusting to the leadership change in the side.
“He is not affected by Captaincy pressure anyway. As far as I am concerned, it’s just about making a small contribution in whatever way possible in future to CSK from Ruturaj’s side. The pressure is too high because he’s following the footsteps of MS Dhoni.”
According to him, no one could match up to the latter but MS had faith that Rutu (Gaikwad) would be able to do a fantastic job. It is very clear that he had some audience support because if it were not so there would have been a lot of pressure from the crowd and other captains must have experienced what happened.
“I suppose CSK’s fans understood what Dhoni’s administration gave as Captain for Ruturaj since he, Dhoni had picked him. The team management appointed him the captain. You might be aware that in their history, CSK management has never meddled in cricket related matters.”
“So, this was also an advantage for Rutu because he knew it came from the management of the team. He was supposed to achieve this goal. I’m sure he will continue doing great in subsequent years.”
“Surely enough, both the CSK management and fans have contributed greatly towards making CSK really good and this is significant since they team neither interferes with creating stuff nor does its cricketing matters take place otherwise. They just do their work.”
“The team has become more responsible because they are now aware that management will not interfere leaving them accountable for deliverying as professionals who need to deliver. This helped us,” he ended.
