The wait to watch former India World Cup winning captain bat in the IPL 2024 continues as the 42-years-old wicketkeeper batter didn’t come out to bat in the match number 7 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between the Chennai Super Kings and the Gujarat Titans.
All the eyes who were in attendance at the Chepauk or those who had their eyes glued on their television screen to watch that iconic walk of MS Dhoni coming down to the ground to bat, were left disappointed as the wait to watch MS Dhoni bat is now closing to almost a year.
In their match against Gujarat Titans, CSK displayed their dominance with the bat and ball to win the match by 63 runs.
Batting first, when the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rachin Ravindra and Shivam Dube set the platform for a big score for the home team, the fans waited for MS Dhoni to finally take the field with the bat in IPL 2024 for the first time.
When Shivam Dube got out after scoring 51 runs from 23 balls in the 19th over, fans were expecting Dhoni to come out, but in walked a young Sameer Rizvi. And by the time the next wicket fell, only 3 balls were left to complete inning, but CSK fans were still hopeful to be disappointed again as Ravindra Jadeja walked out to see out CSK put 206 runs on the board.
In the recent history of the IPL, as MS Dhoni continue to get older, the former Indian captain has started to demote himself lower in the batting order and looks like he has settled for number 7 or 8 in IPL 2024.
Talking about the same, CSK batting coach Mike Hussey indicated that MS Dhoni promoting himself in the batting order looks very slim. “It’s definitely been a directive from (Stephen) Fleming to keep pushing the game forward with the impact player we have an extra batter and bowler so the batting order just keeps lengthening,” Hussey said.
“I think we’ve now got MSD at 8 which is crazy. And MSD is batting pretty well at the moment (in the nets) because we’ve got so much depth in our resources, it means that the players up the order, if they are in two minds, take the positive route. They will certainly have the backing from the coaches and captain. We prefer them to keep pushing the game forward. If you get out in doing that, you will never be criticised. Fleming wants us to play fast,” he added.
