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  4. 'I think the biggest challenge with CSK that he is facing this year is, he doesn't have the..': Rayudu on MS Dhoni and Chennai Super Kings' challenges ahead

In the 2025 IPL, MS Dhoni captained Chennai Super Kings for few matches after Ruturaj Gaikwad was injured

MS Dhoni CSKCSK's MS Dhoni plays a shot in an IPL match against SRH. (Sportzpics)

MS Dhoni has been a pillar for Chennai Super Kings in his 18-year long association with the team in the Indian Premier League. With CSK retaining Dhoni as an uncapped Indian player prior to this year’s IPL mini auction, Dhoni remains one of the key players for the Chennai franchise for next year’s IPL. The former Indian captain had also captained CSK for a few matches when Ruturaj Gaikwad was injured during this year’s IPL. With Chennai Super Kings speeding Rs 43.40 crore in the mini-auction this month, the auction also saw the team spending Rs 14.20 crore each on the likes of uncapped all-rounder Prashant Veer and wicketkeeper-batsman Kartik Sharma making them the joint-most expensive uncapped players in IPL history. Former Indian and CSK player Ambati Rayudu believes that Dhoni and CSK will face challenges in next year’s IPL as the auction did not go well for CSK and how Dhoni and the team do not have the players which the team always had.

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“MS was very different. He used to analyse things on the ground. And he used to pick up the body language of the players that he has on the ground, if they can really come in and do it (make an impact) at that point in time. There’s so much to MS Dhoni’s instinctive captaincy, because I don’t think he went into a lot of stats at all. I think the biggest challenge with CSK that he is facing this year (2025 season) is, he doesn’t have the personnel that he always had. With them he could get these things easily done on a cricket ground. But the auction didn’t go right for CSK,” Rayudu told The Cricket Monthly.

short article insert In his IPL career, Dhoni has captained Chennai Super Kings in more than 270 matches before he stepped down from the role in 2024. Dhoni led the team to five IPL titles apart from two Champions League titles and his tenure saw the Chennai side making 12 IPL play-off appearances including nine finals. In his IPL career so far, Dhoni has scored a total of 5439 runs at an average of 38.30 and strike rate of 137.45 and more than 200 dismissals in the form of stampings and catches behind the wicket. Rayudu showered his praise on Dhoni’s captaincy and called his unpredictability as his greatest asset.

“Dhoni-type captain I don’t think will happen in this era of cricket at least, because people want so much more stats. That’s not wrong, because it is also giving you a lot of information. But MS Dhoni was quite unique. And that is the reason why he was very unpredictable, because he would never do something that the stats say. And that has been his greatest asset as well,” Rayudu said.